The "first stock" of laser chips soared by over 170% this year. What signal does it send?
The explosion of AI has catapulted the semiconductor track to become the hottest investment track globally.
Data statistics show that the A-share semiconductor sector has risen by more than 38% this year, with the storage chip sector rising by more than 48%. In the context of the collective explosion of the industry, individual stocks in the semiconductor industry chain have seen a significant structural rise. Changguang Huaxin is the core leading stock in this round of market.
As of the latest closing data, Changguang Huaxin's stock price has risen by more than 170% this year, corresponding to a total market value of 59.9 billion yuan.
The significant increase in the stock price is a direct reflection of the market capital sentiment and the popularity of the track. However, Changguang Huaxin's performance growth rate does not match the current market value scale. The financial report data shows that in 2025, Changguang Huaxin achieved a revenue of 477.4 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75.09%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 21.76 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 121.82%. Although the performance growth rate is impressive, it mainly relies on the low base effect of previous years. The meager revenue volume of only hundreds of millions forms a huge mismatch with the market value close to 60 billion yuan.
In the first quarter of 2026, Changguang Huaxin continued its growth trend, achieving a revenue of 129.9 million yuan and a net profit of 4.48 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.81% and 159.73% respectively. Although it still maintains a high growth rate, the thin performance volume is still difficult to support the current high valuation.
Combined with the latest market data, Changguang Huaxin's dynamic price-to-earnings ratio has reached as high as 3344 times. From this perspective, the market needs to focus on whether the company's performance can continue to be released to digest the current high valuation bubble.
The "First Stock" of Laser Chips
Changguang Huaxin's growth path is inseparable from the in - depth layout of Min Dayong, the company's chairman and general manager.
In 2000, Min Dayong, the core founder of Changguang Huaxin, graduated with a master's degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and has since been deeply involved in the laser industry.
At that time, the domestic laser industry developed laggingly. Core components such as lasers, galvanometers, and control systems were highly dependent on imports. Domestic enterprises could only undertake low - end assembly and integration business. Limited by the shortage of core technologies, Min Dayong initially entered the laser equipment integration and assembly business. After the business formed a stable scale, he began to independently tackle key technologies for core equipment such as fiber lasers, all - solid - state lasers, and semiconductor lasers. Subsequently, Min Dayong successfully incubated the first domestic listed company in the fiber laser industry - Raycus Laser. This enterprise has gradually shouldered the banner of the domestic fiber laser localization development.
However, at this stage, Min Dayong had not yet been involved in Changguang Huaxin. Their in - depth cooperation began in 2017.
Public information shows that Changguang Huaxin was established in 2012, founded by an overseas returnee doctor team relying on the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since its establishment, the company has shouldered the industrial mission of breaking the long - term monopoly of overseas enterprises in the field of high - power semiconductor laser chips and achieving the independent control of domestic laser chips. For a long time, the market for laser chips and core devices has always been monopolized by international giants such as Lumentum, Coherent, Sumitomo Electric, and Mitsubishi Electric. The market share of domestic enterprises is extremely low, and their industry voice is weak. The birth of Changguang Huaxin is to fill the domestic industrial gap and break through overseas technical barriers.
In 2016, Changguang Huaxin completed the full - process closed - loop of core processes and achieved small - batch supply, providing supporting services for domestic laser equipment manufacturers. The industrialization value of high - power laser chips was initially realized. However, at that time, the company's business volume was small, and its capital reserve was insufficient, so its development was significantly restricted. In 2017, Min Dayong, who adhered to the original intention of domesticating semiconductor laser chips, officially joined Changguang Huaxin. With his profound industry reputation and mature industrial channel resources, Min Dayong helped the company quickly expand the market. The customer structure was upgraded from scattered small and medium - sized customers to cover domestic leading laser equipment manufacturers such as Raycus Laser, Maxphotonics, and Han's Laser.
In addition to customer expansion, Min Dayong established a long - term development tone for the company. In 2018, he proposed the core strategy of "one platform, one fulcrum, horizontal expansion, and vertical extension": taking high - power semiconductor laser chips as the core fulcrum, horizontally expanding the VCSEL chip and optical communication chip business, and vertically extending to the downstream device and module fields. This strategic system laid the development layout for Changguang Huaxin in the past eight years and also enabled the company to accurately position itself in the high - quality optical chip track when the AI computing power industry boom came.
In 2022, Changguang Huaxin was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. The company's issue price was 80.8 yuan per share, and the actual net proceeds from the offering were 2.536 billion yuan, with over - raised funds exceeding 1.1 billion yuan.
Although it bears the industry halo of the "first stock of laser chips", Changguang Huaxin's market performance was dismal in the early stage of listing. It broke below the issue price on the first day of listing, quickly fell below the issue price after the opening, and finally closed down 1.49%, becoming one of the weaker stocks on the Science and Technology Innovation Board that day. In 2022 and 2023, the company's stock price continued to adjust, with annual declines of 15.48% and 37.79% respectively. The stock price dropped to a minimum of 23.37 yuan per share, shrinking by more than 70% compared with the issue price.
It was not until the full - scale intrusion of the AI industry wave that Changguang Huaxin welcomed an opportunity for the reversal of performance and stock price and completely got rid of the long - term downturn.
The "Reality and Fiction" Behind the Soaring Stock Price
Since the second half of 2025, Changguang Huaxin's stock price has completely emerged from the bottom range and started a strong upward - trending market with fluctuations.
The annual data shows that in 2025, Changguang Huaxin's stock price increased by 221.49% in total, and the upward market was mainly concentrated in November at the end of the year, with a monthly increase of as high as 64.5%.
In 2026, the company's upward pace has further accelerated. As of the latest closing, the stock price has increased by 171% this year.
The core driving force for the strong explosion of the stock price in this round comes from the full - scale explosion of the AI industry.
With the iterative upgrading of AI technology, the global AI computing power cluster construction officially advanced from the "thousand - card level" to the "ten - thousand - card level" in 2026. According to industry statistics, the global market scale of AI - dedicated optical transceiver modules will increase from 16.5 billion US dollars in 2025 to 26 billion US dollars in 2026, with an annual growth rate of more than 57%. Among them, the global demand for 800G optical modules is expected to reach 45 million to 50 million units, and the demand for 1.6T high - end optical modules will exceed 25 million units. As the core component of optical modules, optical chips account for 30% - 40% of the overall cost of optical modules, and their performance directly determines the transmission rate and operational stability of optical modules.
Changguang Huaxin is one of the core enterprises in the domestic optical chip track. On March 14, 2025, the company held a new product launch event for optical communication chips, and launched five high - end optical communication chip products at one time, including 200G PAM4 EML, 200G PAM4 PD, 100G PAM4 PD, 70mW CWDM4 CW Laser, and 100G PAM4 VCSEL. Among them, the 200G EML and 70mW CWDM4 CW Laser are domestically first - launched products, filling the domestic gap in high - end optical communication chips and greatly enhancing the company's industry reputation.
Currently, Changguang Huaxin is one of the few domestic enterprises that have achieved mass production and delivery of 100G EML optical chips and can supply domestic and overseas customers in batches. At the same time, the company has established a product matrix of four major optical communication chips, namely VCSEL, DFB, EML, and PIN. The 100G EML has achieved stable mass production, and the 200G EML product is in the customer verification stage. Benefiting from the product's scale - up, in 2025, the revenue of the company's VCSEL and optical communication chip product series was 41.1938 million yuan, with a year - on - year growth rate of more than 10 times, becoming the core driving force for the company's overall revenue to increase by 75.09% year - on - year.
Undoubtedly, with its mature optical chip product layout, Changguang Huaxin has successfully stood at the forefront of this round of AI industry boom. However, the hidden operational risks of the company behind the eye - catching market should not be ignored.
The current biggest uncertainty comes from the iterative switch of the industry's technical route. At present, the optical chip industry has evolved from a single - technology solution to a multi - path co - existence pattern, and the market has formed three major mainstream technical routes: VCSEL suitable for short - distance transmission, EML specializing in medium - and long - distance high - speed transmission, and the silicon - photonics integration solution with long - term potential. Among them, silicon - photonics integration is generally recognized in the industry as the ultimate development direction of the optical chip industry. This technology relies on silicon - based waveguides and achieves a high degree of optical path integration based on the mature CMOS semiconductor process. It can complete multiple functions such as modulation, multiplexing, transmission, and detection in one - stop, with the advantages of high integration, low power consumption, low cost, and easy large - scale mass production, and is highly suitable for the short - distance high - speed interconnection scenario of AI data centers.
According to the industry forecast by LightCounting, the global penetration rate of silicon - photonics technology will exceed 50% in 2026. The silicon - photonics solution is suitable for CW light sources and CPO advanced packaging technology. Once the new light source solution largely replaces the traditional EML solution, the competitive advantage of Changguang Huaxin's current mainstream technical route may be rapidly weakened. In response, Changguang Huaxin has made early arrangements. In 2025, it joined hands with enterprises such as Hengtong Optic - Electric and Donghui Optics to establish Xingyue Photonics and officially entered the silicon - photonics integration track. However, the company's layout pace is relatively slow. In 2026, as the first year of the large - scale implementation of silicon - photonics technology, the production capacity of global leading foundries continues to expand, and more than 70% of the silicon - photonics production capacity is concentrated in overseas enterprises such as Tower, Intel, and Coherent, and the relevant production capacity has been pre - locked by leading customers.
In addition to the risk of technical route iteration, the intensification of industry competition is also a core challenge that Changguang Huaxin needs to face directly.
Currently, the blue - ocean dividends in the optical chip track are fading, and the industry has entered a white - hot competition stage from single - point competition. Among them, Yuanjie Technology is the most core competitor in the domestic track. The company continuously optimizes the product technologies of 100G EML and 200G EML, and the market demand for its products is strong. On the basis of completing customer verification for the 100G PAM4 EML product, the 200G PAM4 EML product has been steadily advancing customer testing and certification. At the same time, the company keeps pace with the trend of CPO/NPO new packaging technologies and has developed a 300mW high - power CW light source product. In addition, Yuanjie Technology's high - speed EML products have passed the supply - chain certification of NVIDIA. According to the calculation of Huatai Securities, Yuanjie Technology's net profit attributable to the parent company is expected to reach 796 million yuan in 2026, about 10 times the expected profit of Changguang Huaxin in the same period.
Overall, being in the golden track of AI optical chips and possessing core domestic technologies, it is reasonable for Changguang Huaxin to be highly sought after by the capital market. However, it should not be ignored that the company is also facing multiple pressures such as technical route iteration and intensified industry competition. Currently, the company's dynamic price - to - earnings ratio is as high as 3344 times. Even though the long - term growth space of the industry is broad, the market should rationally view the market heat and be vigilant against the risk of high - valuation bubbles of individual stocks.