This Is My Best Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock to Buy in June (Hint: It's Not Micron Technology) - The Motley Fool

In 2026, Micron Technology has delivered exceptional returns to investors, with its stock rising 208% so far. However, while Micron plays a key role in the AI ecosystem through high-bandwidth memory (... Read original →

The AI data center boom is triggering a deep tech-stack realignment: while HBM memory demand inflates Micron’s valuation, optical interconnects remain undervalued. Ciena’s core competency in 800G/1.6T coherent optics and its $7B backlog signal hyperscalers recognize optical I/O as the critical bottleneck for AI cluster scaling. Geopolitically, the U.S. CHIPS Act heavily subsidizes memory but neglects domestic gaps in photonic ICs—any decoupling in PIC supply chains would strain Ciena. Rivals like Infinera and Huawei are accelerating silicon photonics integration, narrowing Ciena’s window. Over the next 18 months, as AI clusters scale to 10,000+ GPUs, optical interconnect costs will jump from 15% to 30% of infrastructure spend. If Ciena secures design wins in NVIDIA’s GB200 NVL72 architecture, it could replicate Arista’s 2018 pricing-power breakout in Ethernet switching.