· 供应链分析
这令人极度警惕的是，西方AI基础设施建设可能会被像$AXTI和$SMTOY这样市值仅7亿美元的小公司扼住咽喉。 磷化铟(InP)衬底曾是电信领域的极小众材料，但随着其成为全球激光器和光互连(Photonics Interconnects)的关键材料，这突然变成了国家安全紧急事件。 我不确定顶级供应商是否意识到了这一点，或者至少没有意识到问题的规模（例如，与$LITE签约时并未深入考察Lite的材料供应商），因为供应链正被两家公司严重卡脖子。 以Google TPU v7的量产为例，由于他们的芯片组使用共封装光学(CPO)，几乎完全依赖光子学，这对InP供应链造成了前所未有的压力/依赖，而这种依赖在几个月前根本不存在。 随着铜互连触及上限，AI行业对AXTI的依赖本质上变成了对某家供应所有材料的小盘股的“单点故障”。 我看的不是营收数据，这种依赖关系简直荒谬，1.6T网络架构直接瘫痪。 我不确定企业接下来该怎么办，我确信他们会尝试囤积材料或签订多年协议，但无论如何，这两家公司掌握着所有主动权。
That’s what’s so incredibly alarming, that the Western AI buildout might be held at choke point by an obscure $700m company like $AXTI and $SMTOY. InP substrates were incredibly niche for telecom, but it’s suddenly a national security emergency as it became the material used for the world’s lasers and optional interconnects. I’m not quite sure the top level vendors realized this or at least didn’t realize the scale of this issue (eg. Signing agreements with $LITE without going deeper into the material suppliers for Lite), as the supply chain is incredibly becoming choke pointed by two companies. Google’s TPU v7 ramp for example placed an unprecedented strain/dependency on the InP supply chain that simply didn't exist a few months ago, since they use OCS for their chip pods, which is almost all in on photonics. As we’ve hit the upper limits with copper, the AI industry's reliance on AXTI is essentially a "single point of failure” on some small cap that supplies the materials for everything. I’m not looking at revenue numbers here, this dependency is just absurd, the 1.6T networking just breaks. I’m not sure where companies go from here, I’m sure they’ll try and hoard materials or secure multi-year agreements but either way two companies hold all the cards.