What it holds
Optical Transceivers follows the money through the Photonics and optics bill of materials: the parts it takes to build it, and the companies that earn their revenue supplying them. Each company is read from its own reports, so a holding reflects what it actually sells into the theme, not what it says about it.
| Part | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Interconnection Interface | optical transceivers |
| Networking Equipment | optical networking equipment |
How it breaks down
- United States61%
- China39%
- Large cap ($10bn to $200bn)91%
- Mid cap ($2bn to $10bn)9%
Shares of the strategy as of the data date.
Largest companies
| Company | Listing | Market value |
|---|---|---|
| Coherent | COHR.XNYS | $47 billion |
| Ciena | CIEN.XNYS | $52 billion |
| Fabrinet | FN.XNYS | $13 billion |
| Lumentum Holdings | LITE.XNAS | $82 billion |
| Shandong Zhongji Electrical Equipment | 300308.SHE | $106 billion |
| Suzhou TFC Optical Communication | 300394.SHE | $23 billion |
| Eoptolink Technology | 300502.SHE | $38 billion |
| Applied Optoelectronics | AAOI.XNAS | $7 billion |
The market
IPoDWDM and disaggregated WDM systems only, a narrow sub-segment of optical transport
Dell'Oro Group, via Light Reading, 2030Optical transport (WDM and related systems), driven by data center interconnect spend, not AI-cluster optics
Dell'Oro Group, reported by Fierce Network, 2025Datacom optical components, revenue over $16 billion
Cignal AI, 2025Forward-looking total addressable market for AI scale-up and scale-out optical components, not actual sales; appears to include transceivers
Goldman Sachs Research, 2028 (end year uncertain; another source says 2027-2028)The estimates differ mainly in scope: LightCounting's $26.8 billion for 2025 includes related products such as AOCs, Cignal AI's over $16 billion covers datacom optical components, and MarketsandMarkets' $13.6 billion for 2024 is a generic all-transceiver figure. Timing also matters, since the market grew about 74% in 2025, and Goldman Sachs' $154 billion is a forward-looking addressable market with an uncertain end year.
All 10 published estimates, with sources
| What it measures | Figure | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Datacom optical components, growth of 60%+ driven by 400G and 800G (a year) | +60% | 2025 | Cignal AI |
| Datacom optical components, revenue over $16 billion | $16bn | 2025 | Cignal AI |
| All optical transceivers, generic report (growth, a year) | +13% | 2024-2029 | MarketsandMarkets |
| All optical transceivers, generic report | $14bn | 2024 | MarketsandMarkets |
| Forward-looking total addressable market for AI scale-up and scale-out optical components, not actual sales; appears to include transceivers | $154bn | 2028 (end year uncertain; another source says 2027-2028) | Goldman Sachs Research |
| Transceivers and related products such as AOCs, all applications, not only AI (growth, a year) | +74% | 2025 vs 2024 | LightCounting |
| Transceivers and related products such as AOCs, all applications, not only AI | $27bn | 2025 | LightCounting |
| AI-cluster Ethernet optics, mostly 800G pluggables, including coherent and some LPO | $26bn | 2026 | LightCounting, quoted in Eoptolink SEC filing |
| IPoDWDM and disaggregated WDM systems only, a narrow sub-segment of optical transport | $4.4bn | 2030 | Dell'Oro Group, via Light Reading |
| Optical transport (WDM and related systems), driven by data center interconnect spend, not AI-cluster optics | $16bn | 2025 | Dell'Oro Group, reported by Fierce Network |
Questions
- What is Optical Transceivers?
- Pluggable optics and optical networking for AI clusters.
- What does Optical Transceivers hold?
- Listed companies that earn their revenue from the parts it takes to build AI Supercycle: Interconnection Interface, Networking Equipment. 8 companies as of 2026-10-28.
- What is not in Optical Transceivers?
- Standard and RDMA NIC adapters and controllers: Network Interface and Controller, not Networking Equipment; programmable SmartNICs and DPUs with onboard compute cores: Data Processing Unit (DPU), not Network Interface and Controller Pluggable optical transceivers, AOCs, DACs and AECs: Interconnection Interface, not Networking Equipment or Racks and Cable Management; long haul and DCI optical transport systems: Networking Equipment; passive fiber trunks, patch panels and structured cabling: Racks and Cable Management Finished Ethernet and InfiniBand switch systems: Networking Equipment, not Interconnection Interface; merchant switch ASICs and InfiniBand silicon sold as chips: Interconnection Interface, not Networking Equipment
Sources
Every part of the bill of materials is researched from published industry sources, and every company from its own annual reports and exchange data. Nothing is estimated that cannot be sourced.
Industry research: convergedigest.com/delloro-ai-back-end-switch-market-to-near · fourweekmba.com/nvidia-compute-revenue/ · newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/co-packaged-optics-cpo-book-sc · qsfpdd800g.com/blogs/artical/1-6t-800g-osfp224-optical-trans · 100gmodules.com/info/1-6t-optical-transceiver-suits-high-cap · datacenterfrontier.com/machine-learning/podcast/55394057/ai- · datagravity.dev/p/how-much-does-an-nvidia-nvl72-cost · fibermall.com/blog/how-many-optical-transceivers-needed-for- · investing.com/news/stock-market-news/how-much-does-a-gw-of-d · investing.com/news/technology-news/what-it-costs-to-deploy-1 · itiger.com/news/1113387068 · sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581025000021/q4fy2 · simpletechtrend.com/en/post/2025-2026-optica-transceiver-en · x.com/pequityresearch/status/2084631439149006849
What it is not
Where an item could belong to two parts, these rules decide which owns it; items outside every part are not counted.
- Standard and RDMA NIC adapters and controllers: Network Interface and Controller, not Networking Equipment; programmable SmartNICs and DPUs with onboard compute cores: Data Processing Unit (DPU), not Network Interface and Controller
- Pluggable optical transceivers, AOCs, DACs and AECs: Interconnection Interface, not Networking Equipment or Racks and Cable Management; long haul and DCI optical transport systems: Networking Equipment; passive fiber trunks, patch panels and structured cabling: Racks and Cable Management
- Finished Ethernet and InfiniBand switch systems: Networking Equipment, not Interconnection Interface; merchant switch ASICs and InfiniBand silicon sold as chips: Interconnection Interface, not Networking Equipment
- High speed copper backplanes, scale up cable cartridges and high speed connectors: Interconnection Interface, not Racks and Cable Management
- NVLink and other scale up switch chips: Interconnection Interface, not Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
- PCIe and CXL retimers and switches: Motherboard Interface, not Interconnection Interface; Ethernet and optical DSPs and standalone SerDes IP: Interconnection Interface
- Custom accelerator design services and IP embedded in AI ASICs: Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), not Interconnection Interface; standalone SerDes IP licensing: Interconnection Interface
Not investment advice. Figures are dated and sourced; ThematIQ does not estimate figures it cannot source.