News: Optoelectronics
30 April 2026
AOI awarded $20.9m Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant
Applied Optoelectronics Inc (AOI, a designer and manufacturer of optical and hybrid fibre-coaxial networking products for AI data centers, cable TV and broadband fiber access networks) has been awarded a Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF) grant for $20,852,518 to support its manufacturing expansion plans in Sugar Land, Texas.
The TSIF fund provides grants to higher education and state entities for R&D, and to businesses for economic development related to semiconductor design and manufacturing, aiming to solidify Texas’s position in the industry. AOI’s 2026 expansion is underway to occupy an additional 210,000ft2 manufacturing facility adjacent to its current headquarters in Sugar Land, where it plans to establish one of the largest production capacities for AI-focused data-center transceivers in the USA and create over 500 new jobs in the coming years.
“This investment by AOI to expand their operations in Sugar Land will create hundreds of high-skilled jobs and advance our state’s leadership in innovation and semiconductor manufacturing,” says Texas State Governor Greg Abbott.
“The support from the State of Texas is critical to our expansion plans and is a tangible commitment by the state to advancing semiconductor innovation for the AI era,” comments AOI’s chief financial officer & chief strategy officer Stefan Murry. “AOI was founded by a team from the University of Houston and, over the intervening 29 years we have expanded in Texas to become a major international supplier of optical products enabling the AI age,” he adds. “With this investment, we can continue to expand our Texas-based capacity for production of the advanced high-speed optical transceivers that interconnect today’s AI data centers, helping cloud providers improve network performance while making their data centers more energy efficient and scalable.”
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