Coherent Breaks Ground on Texas Facility to Scale Optical Backbone for AI

Coherent held a groundbreaking ceremony in Sherman, Texas, for an expanded manufacturing facility producing lasers, optical components, and compound semiconductors that connect AI systems. The facility focuses on scaling up production of InP (Indium Phosphide) wafers, which carry data between chips, servers, and data centers at the speed of light.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang attended the project, emphasizing that Coherent's role is essential to rebuilding U.S. manufacturing and to the future of AI. Coherent is receiving a $50 million grant from the CHIPS Act for this expansion, in addition to support from the existing Texas CHIPS program and others.

As modern AI infrastructure scales up, traditional Copper-based approaches face limitations in signal transmission distance and power efficiency. In particular, systems connecting hundreds of GPUs, such as the NVIDIA Vera Rubin Ultra NVL576, require Silicon Photonics technology.

NVIDIA and Coherent have been partners for the past 20 years, and recently signed a strategic partnership to develop next-generation data center architecture. NVIDIA is investing $2 billion in Coherent and has committed to large-scale purchases of advanced laser and optical networking products going forward.