Lumentum's revenue doubles as AI data centers go optical
Optical networking is writing the AI buildout's next earnings chapter: Lumentum's quarterly revenue more than doubled as hyperscalers wire their data centers with light, and a Chinese province drew the line on how schools may use AI.
Lumentum's fiscal Q4 revenue more than doubled year over year to $1.01 billion, beating estimates as AI data centers race to replace copper links with optical connectivity. Adjusted earnings came in at $3.23 per share against the roughly $2.95 to $2.97 analysts expected, and the company guided fiscal Q1 revenue to $1.225 billion to $1.275 billion — well above the $1.16 billion consensus. Adjusted gross margin climbed to 50.4% from 37.8% a year earlier, with components revenue up 103% and systems up 123%. "As AI compute workloads increase in both speed and bandwidth, data center architects are turning to optical links as a primary means of connectivity," CEO Michael Hurlston said. The print is the latest confirmation that the buildout's demand curve is intact at every layer — a day after Supermicro's record year showed AI server demand is still booming, the optics tier is flashing the same signal. Watch Lumentum's optical circuit switch ramp in the second half: that's where the next leg of the AI networking cycle gets decided.
Shandong province published a teaching guide for AI literacy in primary and secondary schools that bans students from using AI to write homework and bars teachers from replacing lesson prep or classroom teaching with AI tools. The guideline, issued by the Shandong Provincial Department of Education, requires schools to put "AI general education" on the regular curriculum with tiered goals across grade levels, while insisting on human agency — a framing that lets schools embrace the technology without surrendering academic integrity. It is the most explicit provincial template yet for how Chinese education is squaring AI adoption with assessment, and it arrives as provinces compete to show AI-savvy education policy.
What to watch: whether Lumentum's optical circuit switch backlog converts into shipments this quarter.
The optics boom is a bet that AI clusters need light, not copper — where do you think the next bottleneck shows up? Tell us in the comments.
