US Communications Equipment: InP Supply Constraint Will Likely Persist: +ve CW on LITE

Research evidence excerpt

US Communications Equipment: InP Supply Constraint Will Likely Persist: +ve CW on LITE

US Communications Equipment

16 July 2026 Citi Research

Executive Summary

Indium phosphide (InP) has become one of the tightest and most strategically

important material bottlenecks in the AI infrastructure buildout. InP is the

semiconductor substrate used to grow the high-speed laser diodes that generate

and modulate the light inside virtually every 800G and 1.6T optical transceiver

connecting GPU clusters inside AI datacenters. Demand for these transceivers is

scaling faster than supply companies such as LITE and COHR who expect modules

demand to surpass supply 30%+ in 1H2026. With 1.6T modules ramping through

2026–2027 and co-packaged optics (CPO) emerging as the next architectural shift

from 2027–2028, our detailed supply-demand model indicates the gap to remain

or extend beyond 2026 which we believe should continue to drive demand visibility

and pricing dynamics. We believe LITE which has 50%+ shares of the EML and UHP

lasers so far will likely be the key beneficiary of the favorable pricing dynamics while

COHR (the leader in 6-inch transition) should benefit from being more internal than

its Chinese competition. Chinese competitors who although are drastically

ramping domestic China InP wafer and laser capacity will nevertheless continue to

lean on the likes of LITE and Sumitomo for the most advanced EML and CW lasers

(150mW and up).

China's February 2025 decision to add InP to its export-control list (IEA) triggered a

severe supply shock and pushed lead times for some customers out to 2028. That

shock has reshaped the competitive map across companies central to this report:

two raw substrate/wafer suppliers with mixed exposure to China (AXTI whose