Three Optical Stocks Solving AI's Bandwidth Crisis

While Nvidia dominates AI headlines, the real bottleneck lies in chip-to-chip communication. Copper cables fail at high speeds and distances, making optical interconnects essential. Industry forecasts project the AI optical interconnect market growing from $3.75 billion in 2025 to $18 billion by 2033, with Nvidia already committing $4 billion to key suppliers. Three stocks stand out in this space: Lumentum, which posted 65% revenue growth and received a $2 billion Nvidia investment; Coherent, whose data center segment surged 33.6% with most of 2026 already booked; and Fabrinet, a contract manufacturer reporting record revenue of $1.133 billion, up 36% year-over-year.