Coherent Breaks Ground on Expanded Texas Facility, Scaling AI’s Optical Backbone
TL;DR
Coherent broke ground on June 16, 2026, on an expanded manufacturing building in Sherman, Texas. The site makes lasers, optical components and interconnect technology for large AI data centers. The expansion is meant to scale Coherent’s 6-inch indium phosphide production. NVIDIA describes it as the world’s first volume production line of its kind for InP wafers.
Nauti's Take
This is clearly PR-heavy, with NVIDIA framing the story around reindustrialization and AI infrastructure. Still, the hard signal is real: AI scaling depends on physical components that almost never show up in tool demos.
The 6-inch wafers matter more than the groundbreaking photo op. If optical parts stay scarce or expensive, large AI clusters will be constrained by power, distance and manufacturing capacity before the next chatbot feature becomes the issue.
Briefingshow
AI infrastructure is not only about chips, but about how quickly and efficiently data moves between racks. Copper hits distance and power limits as systems scale, while optical links become more attractive across large data centers. If InP lasers can be made in higher volume in the U.
S. , that affects cost, supply chains and the pace of buildout.
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