Stifel sees AI supply constraints ahead of Q3 tech earnings

Investing.com - Stifel said AI infrastructure deployment remains supply-gated rather than demand-gated heading into the September-quarter reporting season, with companies citing demand ahead of what they can ship as hyperscalers and large buyers continue raising budgets. The firm identified LITE, CLS, VIAV, AMD and NVDA as having the cleanest positive setups, with COHR and TTMI also positively biased.

Stifel expects beat-and-raise results from AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), with longer-term Helios commentary and detail on the recent World Labs acquisition likely to matter more than results and near-term outlook. For NVDA (NASDAQ: NVDA), the firm expects focus to shift to Vera Rubin volume in F4Q27 and confidence in the 72%-73% FY28 gross-margin framework as memory costs rise. Stifel's ECOC work suggests Spectrum-6 CPO attach is tracking above plan, adding networking upside alongside compute.

LITE (NYSE: LITE) remains Stifel's preferred optical setup, with ECOC meetings reinforcing demand ahead of available laser supply. Management indicated NVIDIA UHP-laser requirements had accelerated into year-end and CY27, with incremental December demand exceeding shipment capacity. Stifel stays constructive on COHR (NASDAQ: COHR), with a CTO meeting strengthening the view that PhotonLink/CPO primarily displaces copper and expands the addressable market, with management sizing roughly $30 billion of incremental 2030 SAM.

CLS (NYSE: CLS) remains among Stifel's highest-conviction names, as the firm's current framework implies a 2027 revenue floor of roughly $35 billion. TTMI (NASDAQ: TTMI) offers direct exposure to increasing AI PCB complexity, supported by a 1.49x book-to-bill and roughly $600 million of expected 2H26 N+M revenue.

VIAV (NASDAQ: VIAV) remains one of Stifel's preferred earnings setups as CPO test moves from development into manufacturing. At ECOC, VIAV, SENKO and Advantest demonstrated an automated production test cell operating at roughly 40 units per hour. Stifel expects a beat and raise, with initial CPO production-test revenue and the F2Q outlook the key catalysts.

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