#optical-interconnects

#optical-interconnects

Nvidia has committed at least $6.5 billion to photonics companies since the beginning of March, making it the largest single investor in the technology that many in the industry believe will replace copper wiring as the backbone of AI data centres. The spending spree reflects a calculation that copper, the standard medium for moving data between chips, is approaching its physical limits just as AI training clusters are demanding exponentially more bandwidth.

MaxLinear is a mixed‑signal communications chip company, and its products are in high demand from the data center buildout, requiring more communications equipment. What makes it special is that it has been consistently under-the-radar and trades with a market cap of just $7 billion. That's despite its family of high‑speed PAM4 DSPs targeted at data center optics, plus supporting components like a Washington 200G TIA (transimpedance amplifier) aimed at cost‑effective, low‑power 1.6T optical connectivity for AI data centers.