Futurum Equities’ Chief Market Strategist Shay Boloor is betting beyond the standard semiconductor chips and focusing on infrastructure, calling Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) an essential “plumbing” of AI data centers, making it a critical hardware play as networks scale.
The Infrastructure Shift
Appearing on Fox Business, Boloor deconstructed the massive hardware demands required to keep up with next-generation AI workloads. While chip giants capture major headlines, the physical networks connecting these processors face an immense data transmission challenge.
Boloor highlighted that traditional hardware setups are no longer sufficient. “The reason I own $AAOI is because it builds the optical connectivity that lets AI chips move data across data centers,” Boloor explained, shifting the spotlight from chip manufacturing to high-speed optical hardware.
The Copper Bottleneck
As tech giants race to build massive AI infrastructure, traditional copper wiring is hitting its physical limits. The sheer volume of data moving during heavy computing tasks requires a massive upgrade in speed and efficiency.
According to Boloor, the industry is approaching a critical infrastructure transition. “As AI scales toward these 500K+ GPU factories, copper becomes the bottleneck and optics become the plumbing that moves data fast enough for training and inference to actually work,” he stated.
Without this optical “plumbing,” even the most advanced AI chips cannot perform efficiently, as per Boloor.
Market Momentum
Boloor’s bullish stance comes amid massive trading volume and heightened market volatility for AAOI. While the broader AI trade has shown signs of losing steam on live tickers, the underlying demand for data center scaling remains robust.
By positioning AAOI as a foundational infrastructure provider rather than a speculative chip stock, he views optical connectivity as a secular, long-term winner in the evolving AI landscape.
How Has AAOI Performed In 2026?
Shares of AAOI have advanced by 367.24% year-to-date. It closed 17.17% lower at $162.88 apiece on Tuesday, and it was 3.38% higher in overnight trading, with a market capitalization of $13.07 billion.
Over the last month, AAOI stock was up 9.36%, and it rose 436.14% over the last six months, and soared 865.50% over the year. Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that AAOI maintains a strong price trend in the medium, short, and long terms.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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