POET Technologies shares exploded higher on Thursday, with the Nasdaq-listed AI photonics company climbing more than 34% to around $19.22 during morning trading after unveiling a major supply and development partnership with Lumilens.
The sharp rally added nearly $5 per share in a single session and pushed POET Technologies back into the spotlight among investors chasing exposure to the fast-growing artificial intelligence infrastructure market.
According to the announcement, Lumilens placed an initial $50 million purchase order for POETâs Electrical-Optical Interposer-based optical engines, with the broader commercial relationship potentially expanding to as much as $500 million in cumulative purchases over the next five years.
The agreement focuses on wafer-level photonic integration technologies designed for high-speed AI optical networking applications, one of the fastest-growing segments inside the global data center market.
POET Technologies said the partnership aims to replace traditional active-alignment manufacturing processes used in optical engine production with scalable wafer-level manufacturing techniques that could improve efficiency while lowering production complexity.
The companies also outlined a long-term product roadmap covering 800G and 1.6T transceivers, Near-Package Optics, and Co-Packaged Optics solutions. Engineering samples are expected to become available in late 2026, while production scaling is currently targeted for customer deployments beginning in 2027.
Investor enthusiasm intensified further after details emerged surrounding a warrant agreement tied to future order growth. Under the arrangement, POET granted Lumilens warrants to purchase up to 22.9 million common shares at an exercise price of $8.25 per share.
An initial tranche covering 2.29 million shares becomes immediately exercisable, while the remaining warrants vest progressively as Lumilens reaches future cumulative purchase milestones tied to the projected $500 million supply target.
The latest surge marks a dramatic reversal for POET Technologies, which had faced significant volatility earlier this year following reports tied to canceled networking-related orders connected to AI infrastructure projects.
The renewed momentum highlights how aggressively Wall Street is repositioning around AI infrastructure stocks beyond traditional semiconductor giants. While Nvidia continues dominating AI accelerator headlines, companies involved in optical connectivity, photonics, and data transmission are increasingly attracting investor attention as hyperscale AI systems require faster and more energy-efficient networking solutions.
Industry forecasts suggest the AI optical networking market could experience multi-billion-dollar expansion over the next several years as cloud providers and enterprise AI operators race to expand high-performance computing capacity.
Despite the rally, POET Technologies remains a highly speculative growth stock. Investors continue monitoring manufacturing scale-up execution, customer qualification timelines, commercialization risks, and the companyâs ability to convert engineering partnerships into recurring long-term revenue streams.
The stockâs explosive move also reflects broader market appetite for smaller-cap AI infrastructure plays capable of benefiting from next-generation data center spending trends.
More information about the growing AI data center market can be explored through Nvidiaâs AI infrastructure platform.
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