LightCounting上调2026年以太网光模块增长预测并提示供应链过热

LightCounting releases July 2026 Cloud Data Center Optics Report
As this report goes to print, the global financial community is starting to have doubts about returns on investments in AI. The fear is getting in the way of the fear of missing out at the moment and these daily and weekly mood swings will continue. The industry supply chain remains red hot and it got even hotter in the last 2-3 months.
LightCounting increased its forecast for optical interconnects in April-May of this year, but the latest forecast is even higher. We now expect that sales of Ethernet optical transceivers will ramp by 73% in 2026, propelling the market to $80 billion by 2031, even with fairly conservative assumptions for growth in 2027 and beyond.
The acceleration in demand started in early February when Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft announced higher than expected planned capex for 2026. The capex projections continue to go up, with a minor reduction from Microsoft in their most recent earnings report being the only exception.
The big question is how will the capex look next year? We may not know until the end of January 2027, but our forecast assumes a significant moderation in the growth rate: from 70% in 2026 to 30% in 2027. Enthusiasm around AI will inevitably subside and even companies like Google will struggle to double their spending indefinitely.
This a big change, but even if the capex growth changes from 70% in 2026 to 50% next year, sales of transceivers may only grow by 30-40% in 2027 because of “non-linearity of the supply chain”. Surging demand creates shortages for components, leading to double ordering and record backlogs until the momentum changes and excess inventories pile up.
Figure below compares year-over-year quarterly growth in sales of Ethernet optical transceivers and the combined capex of Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft (Top 4 CSPs). The correlation is clear.
A closer look at this data reveals that growth in sales of transceivers turns negative six months ahead of capex. Transceiver sales start to fall as soon as the capex trajectory starts to point downward, illustrated by dashed green arrows. The sharper the change in the capex trend, the deeper the correction for the transceiver market. The current capex trend is very flat. If the growth in capex declines gradually, it should not trigger any non-linear effects in the supply chain, ensuring a soft landing for the market in 2027-2028. A “correction of some kind” is a more likely scenario, and that is why we keep our longer-term forecast assumptions as conservative as we can.
Back in January 2026, we were hoping that shortages of InP lasers would be gone by now. With the latest surge in demand, the shortages may stretch into the middle of next year. Almost every component used in high-speed transceivers is in short supply now, as double ordering proliferated across the industry. This situation has never ended well in the past. More people in the industry feel the crazy vibes of 2000-2001, but what can you do? Not going after the opportunities is rarely an option.
Silicon Photonics foundries are reporting an unprecedented level of development activity, mostly for NPO. Future applications in scale-up networks are the primary focus, but we expect that both CPO and NPO will be used for scale-up and scale-out applications.
This report includes a forecast for sales of DWDM coherent transceivers for networks interconnecting cloud data centers, including scale-across. We increased our forecast for sales of 800G ZR/ZR+ transceivers in 2026-2027, but shortages of components may derail these expectations.
The report also includes an updated forecast for AECs and ACCs used by the leading cloud companies. Copper cables continue to challenge plans for all-optical connectivity. It is good to have an ambitious competitor. If it does not kill you, it will make you stronger.
The new report is available to subscribers at: https://www.lightcounting.com/login