Coherent broke ground on its expanded Sherman, Texas manufacturing facility, scaling production of the optical components that form AI's high-speed backbone. The site produces lasers, optical components, and compound semiconductors—including the world's first 6-inch indium phosphide wafers that transmit data between chips at light speed. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang joined Coherent CEO Jim Anderson, along with local officials, to mark the milestone.

The expansion addresses a critical bottleneck: copper wiring cannot efficiently connect the hundreds of processors in massive AI systems like NVIDIA's Vera Rubin Ultra NVL576, which spans eight server racks. Silicon photonics provides the power-efficient solution for moving data across data center distances. This represents concrete progress in bringing advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to U.S. soil through public-private partnerships.

Coherent received a $50 million CHIPS Act grant to fund the expansion, building on $17 million in prior Texas support. NVIDIA invested $2 billion in Coherent earlier this year as part of their multiyear strategic partnership. The facility will eventually support over 550 direct jobs, making Sherman a notable dateline in the AI manufacturing boom.

The partnership reflects a fundamental shift—connectivity now matters as much as raw compute power. While logic chips grab headlines, optical interconnects enable AI systems to scale across massive server configurations. This facility produces the 'connective tissue' that makes large-scale AI deployments physically possible.