AI Networking & Interconnect

Broadcom reported third-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $3.32 per share, up 96.4% year over year and 3.11% above the Zacks Consensus Estimate, with revenues surging 85.5% year over year to $29.59 billion and beating the consensus mark by 0.41%. AI semiconductor revenues jumped 221% year over year to $16.7 billion, representing 56% of total revenues, while Semiconductor Solutions revenues surged 127% year over year to a record $20.84 billion, or 70% of total revenues, and Infrastructure Software revenues increased 29% year over year to $8.75 billion, contributing the remaining 30%. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Broadcom expects revenues of approximately $34.8 billion, representing 93% year-over-year growth, including about $26.1 billion of semiconductor revenues and roughly $8.7 billion of Infrastructure Software revenues. The company raised its fiscal 2026 AI semiconductor revenue outlook to $58 billion, up 186% year over year and above its prior $56 billion view, and said it has secured supply to support approximately $115 billion of AI semiconductor revenues in fiscal 2027, with fiscal 2028 AI semiconductor revenues seen reaching $230 billion. Broadcom also generated record free cash flow of $13.67 billion, equal to 46% of revenues, paid $3.1 billion in dividends, reduced long-term debt by $5.6 billion, and its board approved a quarterly dividend of 65 cents per share.

The global Software-Defined Networking Market is projected to grow from USD 35.74 billion in 2025 to USD 82.59 billion by 2030, a CAGR of 18.2% over the forecast period, according to MarketsandMarkets. Declining hardware and connectivity costs are lowering barriers to network modernization and supporting broader SDN deployments across data centers, enterprise networks, telecom infrastructure, and cloud environments. Within the market, the hybrid SDN segment is expected to register the higher growth rate, while the cloud service providers segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR, with hyperscalers such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure using SDN for multi-tenant isolation and elastic workloads. Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing region, driven by 5G buildout, digital economies, and cloud services, with China's 5G development and India's expanding digital infrastructure supporting adoption. Key players named in the report include Cisco, Huawei, VMware, Dell EMC, IBM, Ericsson, Ciena, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek said it has partnered with Huawei Technologies to develop programming tools optimized for Huawei's Ascend AI chips, the latest sign of Chinese tech companies working to build an alternative to the Nvidia ecosystem. DeepSeek is open-sourcing programming infrastructure for the Ascend platform, including compute and communication libraries, according to a post on its official WeChat account. The two companies also jointly developed a supernode system built on 128 Ascend 950 chips, optimized for both computation and communication, with Huawei providing full support on the software work. The announcement comes two weeks after Huawei unveiled its next generation of AI processors and supernode computing systems and said it expected its AI systems to be widely used for model training next year. Central to the effort is TileLang, an open-source, high-level programming language for AI chips, which DeepSeek pitched as offering a simpler programming model than CUDA, Nvidia's software platform for its chips.

Naruida Radar announced that the company intends to use its own funds of 162 million yuan to acquire a 51% stake in Guangzhou Xintai Communication Technology Co., Ltd. After the transaction is completed, Xintai Communications will become a controlling subsidiary of the company. The target company was established in 2013 and is committed to providing integrated optical transmission systems and optical transmission optimization solutions. It is a domestic optical communication product manufacturer and optical transmission solution provider. Its products include wavelength division optical transmission systems, DCI metropolitan wavelength division systems, OTN intelligent optical network systems, optical amplification systems, optical protection systems, and optical device product series, mainly applied in industries such as telecom operators, ISPs, IDCs, electric power, electronics, information communications, network security, and cloud computing. The counterparty has committed that the target company's non-GAAP net profit from 2026 to 2028 will be no less than 25 million yuan, 29 million yuan, and 38 million yuan, respectively.

Microchip Technology announced the expansion of its 10BASE-T1S Single Pair Ethernet portfolio with new transceivers and endpoint devices, sending shares up 1.9% to $79.42. The expansion introduces the LAN8679 and LAN8680 physical layer transceivers alongside the LAN8660X/1X/2X family of endpoints with integrated transceivers to support zonal architectures. The new products are engineered to meet AEC-Q100 automotive qualification requirements and ISO 26262 functional safety standards while simplifying wiring and delivering flexible edge connectivity. The stock is up 22.1% since the beginning of the year but remains 22.8% below its 52-week high of $102.92 from May 2026.

Cisco Systems said enterprises are giving AI agents more control over network operations, citing a survey of 1,000 technology leaders conducted by Omdia for Cisco in which the average organization reported roughly 4,100 monitoring events a day. Cisco estimated that clearing the daily network alert backlog by hand would take about 100 specialists, and 86% of respondents favored a single integrated platform, giving the company an opening to sell networking, security and observability together. Shares slipped about 0.4% to $106.265 at 11.25am ET on September 29. That opening still has to turn into sales, with investors needing to see platform bookings, more customers adopting Splunk alongside Cisco products, and faster incident resolution. The chart places Cisco's $106.265 share price 41.93% above its $74.87 GF Value estimate.

Microchip Technology announced the expansion of its 10BASE-T1S portfolio with the introduction of the LAN8679 and LAN8680 10BASE-T1S PMD transceivers, alongside the LAN8660X/1X/2X family of endpoints with integrated transceivers. The LAN8679 transceiver provides a standardized Open Alliance 3-Pin interface in a compact 8-pin VDFN package, while the LAN8680 adds System Basis Chip features including power management, system wake/sleep control and watchdog supervision. The LAN8660X/1X/2X endpoint family integrates a PMD transceiver into a single-chip Remote Control Protocol solution, allowing compact edge nodes for control systems, lighting and audio without external PHY components. The devices are designed to meet AEC-Q100 and ISO 26262 functional safety standards and build on Microchip's VelocityDRIVE portfolio, targeting automotive zonal architecture, industrial automation, robotics and aerospace and defense. Using 10BASE-T1S multidrop topology, the solutions let multiple nodes, typically eight or more, share a single bus line, reducing wiring weight and system costs. The LAN8679, LAN8680 and LAN8660X/1X/2X are available in limited sampling.

Samsung Electronics signed AI radio-network deals with KT and SK Telecom, even as its Seoul shares closed Monday down 5.43% at 270,000 won. The trials begin in October, with KT planning to test welding robots at a shipyard and SK Telecom testing patrol robots and video monitoring at a petrochemical site. Samsung is KT's sole global vendor and SK Telecom's main vendor for the projects, but the company disclosed no contract value, making the trials a proof point rather than a revenue forecast. Samsung's GF Score stands at 84 out of 100, showing strong growth and financial strength alongside a much weaker GF Value reading. Investors now need to see whether successful trials lead to repeat deployments and contracts large enough to matter.

Nvidia launched a platform designed to keep autonomous AI agents within set limits, adding a security angle to its infrastructure business, and shares rose 3% to $231.88 at approximately 9:31 a.m. ET Monday. The platform gives companies two ways to stop an agent from going too far: OpenShell controls which files, networks and tools an agent can use, while Sentry runs separately on BlueField-4 hardware, watches for behavior outside those rules and can isolate the agent within milliseconds. Nvidia is pitching the combination across software, data centers and robotics. The investor case is that free security software could bring more customers into Nvidia's ecosystem and, over time, lift demand for its processors and networking hardware. Nvidia has given no separate revenue target for the platform, so investors still need evidence that adoption will turn into additional sales.

After Hengtong Optic-Electric disclosed a private placement plan exceeding 6.6 billion yuan and an employee stock ownership plan, its share price hit the daily limit down on Monday, closing at 60.64 yuan per share. Main capital recorded a net outflow of 1.86 billion yuan, and market value evaporated by 16.621 billion yuan that day. On September 25, Hengtong Optic-Electric disclosed its private placement plan, proposing to issue no more than 740 million shares to no more than 35 qualified investors and raise no more than 6.636 billion yuan. The proceeds will be used for a new-generation optical fiber research and production project, an Inner Mongolia high-end optical new materials construction project, a CPO advanced packaging research and development project, a Hengtong data intelligent connectivity project, an AI advanced optical interconnection project, the Hengtong Jieyang marine energy interconnection and smart operation and maintenance project, a 10,000-ton-class deep-sea cable-laying vessel investment and construction project, a Hengtong intelligent manufacturing industrial base project, and supplementary working capital. On the same day, the company unveiled a draft 2026 employee stock ownership plan, proposing to grant no more than 8.4368 million shares, or about 0.34 percent of total share capital, to no more than 222 participants including director and president Zhang Jianfeng, director and chief communications technology officer Tian Guocai, and vice president Liu Zhenhua, at a grant price of 34.27 yuan per share. In the first half of this year, Hengtong Optic-Electric achieved revenue of 42.026 billion yuan, up 31.13 percent year on year, and net profit of 3.12 billion yuan, up 93.38 percent year on year.

National Telecom, or NT, has signed a memorandum of cooperation with APTelecom LLC in Singapore to study and assess the feasibility of investing in the Thailand-United States undersea cable project, known as THUS. The study will cover technical and financial aspects, the search for co-investment partners, environmental impact, and related regulations. The signing ceremony was attended by Colonel Sanpachai Huvanandana, President of NT, and Mr. Eric R. Handa, Chief Executive Officer of APTelecom, as signatories, with Mr. Puchong Anantasin, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society and Chairman of NT's board, together with a delegation from the United States Trade and Development Agency, or USTDA, witnessing the event. Colonel Sanpachai said the THUS project is a strategic investment approach to develop the country's digital infrastructure. APTelecom will study an open-access high-speed undersea cable system linking Thailand with the United States through partner countries in the ASEAN region. The network aims to meet rising connectivity demand from data center, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence businesses, as well as to support investment by global technology industries and enhance Thailand's potential as a regional digital connectivity hub. The cooperation is currently at the investment feasibility study stage, and the study results will inform consideration of how to proceed with the project in the next phase.

Huilv Ecology announced on the evening of September 27 that its controlling subsidiary, Wuhan Junheng Technology Co., Ltd., plans to invest 309 million yuan to build the Junheng Technology R&D and production base project in Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone. The funding will come from its own funds or self-raised funds. The project was approved by the company's board of directors on September 24, does not involve related-party transactions, and does not require submission to the shareholders' meeting. After the project is completed, Junheng Technology's existing production line with an annual capacity of 1.5 million units will undergo a comprehensive technology upgrade, while the new base will add a production line with an annual capacity of 2 million high-speed optical modules. The total annual capacity for high-speed optical modules in the Wuhan area will reach 3.5 million units, after which the existing production facilities will no longer be used. The project will be implemented in two parts with phased coordination. The construction period for the R&D and production base is approximately 20 months, with construction planned from November 2026 to June 2028, and a proposed investment of 288 million yuan. The high-speed optical module R&D project is expected to take 3 months, with construction planned from April 2028 to June 2028, and an investment of approximately 21.5586 million yuan. The company stated that this project will help expand production capacity during a period of rising industry demand, ensure stable supply to customers, and reserve technical capabilities for next-generation products. The production capacity scale is broadly aligned with the current growth in market demand for 800G and 1.6T optical modules. In terms of performance, in the first half of 2026, Huilv Ecology achieved operating revenue of 1.037 billion yuan, up 49.01 percent year on year, while net profit attributable to the parent company was 27 million yuan, down 27.79 percent year on year. Revenue from optoelectronic device business was 958 million yuan, up 74.54 percent year on year, and its share of total revenue rose to 92.36 percent.

Broadcom expects AI chip revenue of roughly $115 billion in fiscal 2027 and $230 billion in fiscal 2028, according to Reuters, a target that doubles the delivery test for the custom AI chip and networking supplier. The company reported $16.7 billion in fiscal third-quarter AI semiconductor revenue, about 56% of its $29.59 billion total. Shares fell about 2% to $348.02 at 10.40am ET on Thursday morning as investors weighed the promise against execution risk. At that price, Broadcom trades 15.36% below the $411.18 GF Value cited by GuruFocus. Doubling AI sales in a year demands that chips be made, packaged and delivered on schedule, and any slip in supply or customer deployments would leave the revenue target offering little comfort.

Citi analyst Fatima Boolani remains neutral on Fastly, arguing the traffic boost from Meta's new AI assistant Muse will not translate into the profits needed to justify the stock's recent rally. Fastly shares fell 9% on Thursday, giving back part of the 14% surge they enjoyed on Wednesday after a Yahoo Finance report highlighted the company's role in powering Muse traffic. In a research note published Thursday, Boolani said Fastly charges customers per gigabyte of data transferred rather than per request, so the many small, quick requests generated by AI assistants earn the company far less than heavy streaming video traffic would. She also noted Fastly appears to be providing only basic, low-margin data delivery for Meta, with little evidence the company is selling its higher-margin security add-ons alongside that traffic. Citi instead prefers Cloudflare as the best way to invest in AI infrastructure, citing its more complete tool set and its head start in monetizing the AI boom, while competitor Akamai is seen as a mixed bag facing its own business hurdles. Boolani said Fastly's next earnings report will be the key test of whether its AI narrative turns into real revenue, and that a buy rating would require proof it can sell profitable security features alongside the Meta traffic and a surge in AI request volumes large enough to offset its unfavorable pricing structure.