BlockBeats News, June 17th, Global photonics technology company Coherent (COHR) announced that it has signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receive up to $50 million in direct funding under the CHIPS Act to expand its 6-inch Indium Phosphide (InP) semiconductor manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas, USA.

Coherent stated that this investment will support the growing demand for optical networking technology in AI data centers and further strengthen its long-standing and recently expanded partnership with NVIDIA. Upon project completion, the Sherman facility is expected to create over 1,000 jobs, including more than 550 advanced manufacturing, engineering, and technical positions. The expansion will double the manufacturing production space and quadruple wafer capacity.

This capacity expansion will enhance the U.S. domestic photonics chip supply chain capabilities and support the high-speed data transmission needs of AI computing infrastructure, alleviating the communication bottlenecks brought by large-scale AI computation. It will also collaborate with NVIDIA to drive the upgrade of optical networking and interconnect technologies for AI-centric "Data Center Factories." Previously, NVIDIA announced a $2 billion investment in Coherent.