A super hidden champion emerges in Hubei: A professor from Huazhong University of Science and Technology specializes in special optical fibers and ranks among the top three in the country.

Light can cut through steel and cure diseases. However, ordinary optical fibers can't achieve this, while special optical fibers can.

Changjin Photonics, a hard-tech enterprise emerging from a laboratory in Hubei, is redefining the boundaries of light with "special optical fibers". Recently, Changjin Photonics launched an IPO bid.

It is making special optical fibers shine and play their roles.

By doping rare earths into glass filaments, it creates "the blood vessels of lasers".

It enables surgical lasers to be precise at the cellular level without burning tissues.

It makes the lasers used in automobile welding as flexible as embroidery needles.

It cuts the sky - high price of 800 yuan per meter for imported products to a few hundred yuan.

Moreover, more powerful tides are approaching: the AI computing power war, satellite Internet, etc., have opened up new tracks for special optical fibers.

- 01 -

Changjin Photonics was founded in 2012. Its initial core technology originated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, especially the fiber laser technology team led by Professor Li Jinyan, who serves as the company's chairman.

Professor Li Jinyan is from Xining and was born in the 1970s. He entered the Department of Resources and Environmental Engineering at Wuhan University of Technology in 1991 and was admitted to the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998.

The company's core product is special optical fibers, including rare - earth - doped optical fibers, passive optical fibers for lasers, and special optical fibers for communications.

Among them, the relatively core product is the rare - earth - doped optical fiber. As the name suggests, this type of optical fiber changes the optical properties of the fiber by doping rare - earth elements into ordinary optical fibers. For example, in fiber lasers, it can serve as a gain medium, converting the energy of pump light into laser output and improving the efficiency of laser generation.

Special optical fibers can be regarded as "upgraded optical signal transmission lines". Compared with the ordinary optical fibers we use for daily Internet access, they can work in more complex and special scenarios.

For example, in minimally invasive surgeries, the optical fibers in the laser scalpels used by doctors are special optical fibers. They can accurately transmit high - energy lasers, resist high temperatures and corrosion, and avoid harming human tissues.

In automobile welding and chip cutting, super - strong lasers are required. Special optical fibers can "withstand" the energy of such high - power lasers and accurately deliver the light to the processing area, like a "laser conduit that is not afraid of burning".

Previously, the industry was highly dependent on imported products.

From the cost perspective, according to market research data, 30% of China's high - end special optical fibers rely on imports. Products supplied by foreign companies such as Corning in the United States and Leoni in Germany are 2 - 5 times more expensive than domestic similar products.

In the field of core preforms, such as photonic crystal preforms, the import dependence is as high as 50%, and the import price is 3 - 5 times that of domestic products.

The price of similar products produced by Changjin Photonics is only about half of that of imported products.

Taking a fiber laser manufacturer as an example, previously, the cost of purchasing imported ytterbium - doped optical fibers could reach 800 yuan per meter. After switching to Changjin Photonics' products, the cost per meter can be reduced to a few hundred yuan.

Another major problem is the long supply cycle. In China, if special optical fibers are imported from Europe and the United States, including cross - border transportation and customs clearance processes, it often takes 4 to 6 months to receive the goods. Through local production, Changjin Photonics can reduce processes that may cause supply delays.

The market of China's special optical fiber industry is relatively concentrated. The leading manufacturers, including Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company, Ruixin Optical Fiber, Changjin Photonics, FiberHome Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd. (Ruiguang Xintong), and Changyingtong, account for 35% of the market share.

In 2024, the company achieved an operating income of 445 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 30.96%. It realized a net profit attributable to the parent company of 69 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 66.53%.

- 02 -

There are mainly two emerging opportunities for special optical fibers: AI computing power optical connections and special optical fibers for satellite Internet.

Taking AI computing power optical connections as an example, the main driving factor is AI data centers.

The market for AI computing power optical connections is definite. The breakthroughs in generative AI and large - language models have driven an exponential growth in the demand for computing resources.

The large - scale deployment of AI server clusters has led to a surge in data center traffic. Traditional optical modules are difficult to meet the requirements of high - density data transmission, thus accelerating the development of new optical connection technologies such as 800G/1.6T optical modules and CPO, creating new market opportunities for relevant enterprises.

According to industry forecasts, in 2025, overseas cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta will significantly increase their capital expenditures in the AI field. Amazon plans to invest over 100 billion US dollars, and Microsoft plans to allocate 80 billion US dollars for data center construction.

AI data centers rely on a large number of GPUs for collaborative computing. The memory bandwidth of a single GPU (such as H100) has reached 3TB/s, resulting in a huge demand for data transmission.

Traditional electrical signal transmission suffers severe losses in long - distance and high - bandwidth scenarios. Optical modules, through photoelectric conversion, achieve ultra - high bandwidth (such as 800G/1.6T modules) and ultra - low latency (nanosecond - level) transmission, becoming the preferred solution for large - scale data centers.

Currently, the number of optical modules in AI data centers is 2.5 to 10 times that of GPUs. Moreover, optical modules are constantly evolving, from traditional plug - and - play to LPO, and then to CPO technology (co - packaged optics), with lower energy consumption and stronger performance.

It is estimated that by 2030, the CPO market size may reach 9.3 billion US dollars, with an average annual compound growth rate of over 30%. The data center and artificial intelligence fields will account for over 70% of the market share.

In terms of special optical fibers for satellite Internet, the global deployment of low - Earth orbit satellite constellations is accelerating. China's planned "Guowang" constellation project plans to launch about 13,000 low - Earth orbit satellites, which will create a large demand for special optical fibers.

Special optical fibers, such as ytterbium - doped optical fibers and erbium - ytterbium co - doped optical fibers, are the core components of on - board laser communication systems, used in fiber amplifiers and laser sources.

Satellite laser communication has extremely high requirements for the radiation tolerance, temperature stability, and mechanical reliability of optical fibers, prompting enterprises to accelerate the development of radiation - resistant special optical fibers, stable optical fibers in a wide temperature range, and other products.

In 2025, the global market size of special optical fibers is expected to exceed 15 billion US dollars, with China accounting for nearly 40%. Among them, the procurement volume of special radiation - resistant optical fibers in the national defense field has increased by 23% year - on - year, which is closely related to the construction of the satellite Internet.

This article does not constitute any investment advice.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Pencil News" (ID: pencilnews), written by Aiyu, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.