TORONTO, June 2, 2026, 10:06 ET
POET Technologies shares gained roughly 10% in early Nasdaq trade Tuesday. The move reversed some of last week’s slide as traders rotated back into the volatile AI-hardware stock.
The stock changed hands at $15.24, up $1.35 from Monday’s finish, swinging between $14.06 and $15.67. Around 12.3 million shares traded on a delay. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF rose 2.7%. Marvell Technology, Lumentum and Coherent were also up.
Why it matters now: POET is turning into a real-time test for how much the market values early bets on optical links for AI data centers. Shares dropped 17.1% last week, even though the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained. Motley Fool writer Keith Noonan said there wasn’t any big company-specific news tied to the slide.
POET hasn’t posted a new press release on its newsroom since May 18, when it announced closing a $400 million registered direct offering. This type of offering lets a company sell securities directly to chosen investors with a filed registration statement. It can boost cash but might dilute current shareholders.
May’s financing deal sits at the heart of the trade. POET reported that it sold 19,047,620 common shares plus a warrant for the same number of shares to one institutional investor. The company said the deal brought in $400,000,020 in gross proceeds. A warrant allows the investor to buy stock at a preset price in the future.
POET CEO Suresh Venkatesan said the company is “expanding our capacity by roughly ten-fold” for wafer production and optical-engine assembly. He linked the ramp to a Lumilens deal and other big-volume work. Wafer production is making chips on circular semiconductor discs that get sliced into devices. POET Technologies
Bull case, straight up: POET claims its optical interposer—a layer that links chips and photonics—could cut costs, lower power draw, and shrink hardware for faster data inside AI systems. POET is going after 800G, 1.6T and faster optical engines and modules aimed at AI clusters and big data centers.
Lumilens was the key deal before the financing round. POET and Lumilens put out news of a supply agreement for electrical-optical interposer (EOI) engines. The agreement includes a first order worth $50 million and could lead to over $500 million in purchases in five years, if future payments and development targets are hit.
POET and Lumilens expect to have engineering samples of their AI optical network chips in late 2026, CEO Ankur Singla said May 14. Production is set to scale with hyperscaler rollouts in 2027. “GPU interconnects are emerging as the defining bottleneck for scaling AI,” Singla said. POET Technologies
POET is still trading more like an early-stage chip firm than a big supplier. First quarter revenue was $503,389, with a net loss of $12.3 million. CEO Venkatesan pointed to partnerships with LITEON, Lessengers and Lumilens as evidence of “the growing demand” for POET’s platform, but results keep the company in the ramp-up phase. It’s not a full-scale production story yet. POET Technologies
Marvell remains an issue for POET. On April 27, POET said Marvell Semiconductor canceled all purchase orders from Celestial AI, which Marvell had bought, after claiming POET broke confidentiality rules by disclosing purchase-order and shipping details. POET said it’s still working with other customers, including a different order worth about $5 million.
POET is working through U.S. tax issues for its shareholders. In April, the company said it expects to be a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, in 2025, a status that can trigger extra taxes for U.S. investors. CFO Thomas Mika said the board plans to move POET’s headquarters to the U.S. and redomicile there, with a shareholder vote possible at the June 26 annual meeting.
Tuesday’s rally could just be about trading flows, not real shifts in the story. The Lumilens order still hangs on hitting key milestones in development, qualification and mass production. POET’s own filings say outcomes might not match what it’s banking on, and there’s still the big step from minor quarterly sales to meaningful product shipments. If samples slip, if Malaysia hits capacity issues, or if customers delay sign-off, investors could see dilution and Marvell risks back up top.
