AI Infrastructure Stocks: Lumentum, Applied Materials Outpace Nvidia With 121% and 67% Gains - Tech Times

In the surge of AI infrastructure development, optical component maker Lumentum and semiconductor equipment giant Applied Materials have outperformed industry leader Nvidia, with year-to-date gains of... Read original →

The AI infrastructure boom is triggering a structural reallocation across the semiconductor stack. Lumentum’s surge underscores the critical need for optical interconnects to overcome copper bottlenecks in 3nm-era AI clusters—Nvidia’s $2B investment is a strategic hedge, not mere supplier support. Applied Materials benefits from acute equipment scarcity driven by AI logic and HBM demand, yet its heavy exposure to China invites regulatory risk amid tightening U.S. export controls. Samsung and SK Hynix are racing toward HBM4 to dominate AI memory, while SMIC, barred from EUV, remains confined to mature nodes. Over the next 18 months, photonics integration and advanced packaging—not just transistor scaling—will dictate capex priorities. Escalating U.S.-China tech decoupling may fracture the global AI hardware supply chain into parallel, regionally siloed ecosystems.