Coherent Corp just dropped $650 million on expanding its semiconductor manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas, a bet that the future of AI runs on light, not just electricity.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang showed up to the groundbreaking ceremony alongside Coherent CEO Jim Anderson. This isn’t a courtesy visit. It’s a signal that optical interconnect technology has become mission-critical infrastructure for the AI industry.
What Coherent is actually building
The Sherman facility houses the world’s first high-volume 6-inch Indium Phosphide production platform, which is the kind of compound semiconductor material that makes high-speed optical components possible. The expansion will double the manufacturing floor space and quadruple the facility’s wafer production capacity.
Coherent expects the project to generate approximately 1,000 new jobs. Over 550 of those will be specialized positions in advanced manufacturing, engineering, and technical roles.
