Teleconferência de Resultados do 2T do AF2027 da GSI Technology (GSIT): Pressão sobre as Margens e Avanço do Plato

A GSI Technology (NASDAQ: GSIT) divulgou receita de US$ 6,0 milhões e prejuízo líquido de US$ 7,0 milhões no segundo trimestre fiscal de 2027. Gargalos de fabricação pesaram sobre os embarques e a margem bruta, enquanto a companhia continuou investindo na comercialização do Gemini-II, na plataforma de software GRINN e em sua APU de última geração, Plato.

Principais Destaques

• A receita do 2T fiscal de 2027 foi de US$ 6,0 milhões, dentro da faixa de projeções da administração, mas ligeiramente abaixo do ponto médio, já que a escassez de estoques e os prazos de fabricação mais longos atrasaram alguns embarques.
• A margem bruta caiu para 48,5%, abaixo do guidance da empresa de 53% a 55%, principalmente devido ao aumento dos custos com wafers, montagem terceirizada, burn-in e testes.
• A GSI registrou prejuízo líquido de US$ 7,0 milhões, ou US$ 0,18 por ação diluída. As despesas operacionais subiram para US$ 10,4 milhões, incluindo custos de desenvolvimento do Plato e honorários advocatícios e profissionais não recorrentes.
• Para o 3T fiscal de 2027, a administração projetou receita entre US$ 5,0 milhões e US$ 6,0 milhões e margem bruta de aproximadamente 38% a 40%.
• O estágio inicial da Fase I do projeto Smart Guardian Eye, de Taiwan, foi homologado após o encerramento do trimestre. O sistema baseado no Gemini-II está fornecendo monitoramento de vídeo por IA em tempo real e relatórios de incidentes em cerca de 20 câmeras.
• O tape-out do Plato continua previsto para março de 2027, com chips da primeira versão (first-spin) direcionados para amostragem inicial até o final do verão de 2027. O chip foi projetado para executar inferência de IA com consumo inferior a 10 watts.

Principais Dados Financeiros

Os clientes dos setores militar e de defesa representaram 46,7% dos embarques do 2T fiscal, acima dos 31,3% no trimestre anterior e dos 28,9% de um ano antes. A KYEC respondeu por 19,7% da receita líquida, contra 16,1% no 1T fiscal, enquanto a GSI não registrou embarques para a Cadence durante o trimestre.

Desempenho Comercial e Operacional

Gemini-II e Smart Guardian Eye

A etapa inicial aprovada da Fase I do projeto Smart Guardian Eye, de Taiwan, abrange cerca de 20 câmeras. A plataforma combina interpretação de imagens, detecção de eventos e recursos de linguagem natural para apoiar o monitoramento de segurança pública e a resposta a incidentes.

A administração planeja avançar para a Fase II, que deve expandir a implantação para cerca de 80 câmeras e adicionar reconhecimento automático de fala. Qualquer trabalho adicional permanece sujeito a um processo licitatório governamental competitivo e à decisão final do condado.

A GSI pretende utilizar a prova de conceito concluída e os trabalhos iniciais de implantação como aplicações de referência, reaproveitando software e engenharia em oportunidades semelhantes de vigilância e infraestrutura inteligente.

Plataforma de Software GRINN

A GSI nomeou seu kit de desenvolvimento de software assistido por IA como GRINN, sigla para GSI Runtime Infrastructure for Neural Networks. A administração afirmou que o GRINN pode adaptar à APU alguns modelos existentes de plataformas como Hugging Face e GitHub em questão de horas.

O trabalho de desenvolvimento que antes exigia cerca de um ano-pessoa já foi reduzido para menos de um mês. Algumas tarefas agora podem ser concluídas em menos de uma semana, embora os prazos variem conforme o modelo e a complexidade da aplicação.

A empresa espera disponibilizar o GRINN para os primeiros clientes antes do final de dezembro de 2026, com o lançamento comercial previsto para o primeiro semestre do ano civil de 2027. A administração considera a plataforma fundamental para permitir que clientes e integradores de sistemas desenvolvam modelos sem depender dos recursos internos limitados de engenharia da GSI.

Programas de Defesa e Aeroespacial

No âmbito do programa Sentinel com a G2 Tech, a GSI concluiu suas entregas iniciais de chips e software. Os testes laboratoriais com o modelo Gemma-3 12B registraram um tempo até o primeiro token de aproximadamente 2,4 segundos. Uma demonstração em campo liderada pela G2 Tech pode ocorrer no primeiro semestre do ano civil de 2027, a depender do parceiro e das agências de defesa participantes.

A GSI também está desenvolvendo um nó de IA de borda reforçado baseado no Gemini-II, sob um contrato SBIR Fase I do Exército dos EUA, com conclusão prevista para o verão de 2027.

Para o programa da Space Development Agency, a empresa concluiu testes de radiação em um dispositivo padrão Gemini-II. A administração classificou as descobertas preliminares sobre o efeito single-event latch-up como encorajadoras e afirmou que indicam tolerância à radiação, enquanto a interpretação final dos resultados de dose ionizante total ainda está pendente.

Desenvolvimento do Plato

O tape-out do Plato continua agendado para março de 2027, com chips first-spin previstos para amostragem inicial no final do verão de 2027. A APU foi projetada para fornecer inferência local de IA com menos de 10 watts em aplicações como câmeras alimentadas por bateria, pequenos drones autônomos, robôs móveis e sensores industriais remotos.

A administração afirmou que potenciais parceiros estratégicos demonstraram interesse no Plato. Essas parcerias poderiam fornecer recursos de desenvolvimento de hardware e software, além de acesso a mercados que a GSI atualmente não atende de forma independente. Nenhum acordo havia sido assinado até o momento da teleconferência.

Projeções da Administração (Guidance)

A administração afirmou que as pressões nos custos de fabricação e o mix de produtos continuarão a impactar a margem bruta no 3T fiscal. A GSI planeja aumentar os preços imediatamente para novos pedidos e a partir de 1º de janeiro para a carteira de pedidos existente (backlog). A empresa espera que essas medidas, somadas a uma melhor disponibilidade de estoques, sustentem a recuperação da receita e da margem bruta a partir do 4T fiscal de 2027.

A expectativa é que os custos externos de design relacionados ao Plato continuem até o tape-out planejado para março de 2027. O consumo trimestral de caixa pode variar de acordo com os marcos de desenvolvimento e outras atividades dos programas.

Riscos e Pontos de Atenção

• A escassez de estoques e os prazos mais longos para wafers, substratos, montagem, burn-in e testes estão atrasando os embarques para os clientes.
• Clientes de maior porte não têm colocado pedidos com antecedência suficiente de forma consistente, aumentando a incerteza para produtos de maior volume.
• A pressão nos custos de fabricação deve continuar no 3T fiscal de 2027, contribuindo para a margem bruta projetada de 38% a 40%.
• A Fase II do Smart Guardian Eye depende de licitação competitiva e da decisão final de concessão por parte do condado.
• A demonstração em campo do Sentinel depende da G2 Tech e das agências de defesa participantes; financiamentos e pedidos futuros exigem decisões subsequentes do programa.
• O silício inicial do Plato pode exigir soluções alternativas de software (workarounds), e a administração afirmou que ainda é incerto se será necessária outra revisão do chip antes da produção comercial.

Destaques da Sessão de Perguntas e Respostas com Analistas

A administração atribuiu as restrições de oferta a uma combinação de prazos estendidos de substratos e montagem com a falta de pedidos antecipados de clientes maiores. Clientes menores geralmente têm feito pedidos antecipados, mas produtos de maior volume permanecem mais expostos.

Em relação a parcerias estratégicas, a administração afirmou que as negociações visam inserir a GSI em mercados que ela não consegue atender sozinha atualmente. Um parceiro poderia fornecer suporte no desenvolvimento tanto de sistemas de hardware quanto de software. A empresa indicou que um acordo pode surgir potencialmente até o final de 2026 ou no início de 2027, mas enfatizou que nada foi assinado.

A administração descreveu o GRINN como essencial para escalar a comercialização do Gemini-II, pois permitirá que clientes e integradores desenvolvam seus próprios algoritmos e modelos, em vez de depender da equipe interna da GSI.

Quanto ao Plato, a administração afirmou que o interesse abrange dispositivos operados por bateria, PCs industriais, servidores corporativos e data centers. A GSI está buscando parceiros para mercados maiores, onde não dispõe de recursos para desenvolver aplicações de forma independente.

Transcrição Completa da Teleconferência de Resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

Operator

Good day, and welcome to GSI Technology's Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2027 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

Before we begin today's call, GSI Technology has requested that I read the following safe harbor statement. The matters discussed in this conference call may include forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of GSI Technology that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks and uncertainties are described in the company's Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Additionally, I have also been asked to advise you that this conference call is being recorded today, November 5, 2026, at the request of GSI Technology. Lee-Lean Shu, the company's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will be hosting the call today.

With him are Douglas Schirle, Chief Financial Officer; and Didier Lasserre, Vice President of Sales.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Shu. Please go ahead, sir.

Lee-Lean Shu

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, we made progress on our projects and plan to bring our APU technology to market. We recently announced that the initial stage of our Smart Guardian Eye Phase I project in Taiwan was accepted. The system is now providing live AI video monitoring and incident reporting, confirming Gemini-II can perform in real-world applications. We plan to leverage these projects into repeatable business and revenue.

In addition to securing design wins for Gemini-II, we are advancing 2 important initiatives to grow our APU business: our AI-assisted software development kit, or SDK, and the Plato, our next-generation APU. Our team continues to test and improve our AI-assisted SDK, and I will update you on that progress.

Plato, our next-generation APU, remains on schedule for tape-out in March 2027. We expect to have the first-spin chips ready for initial sampling by late summer of calendar 2027. Plato is designed to run AI inference at less than 10 watts of power. We believe its low-power capability will open new market opportunities for GSI. We are also seeing interest from potential strategic partners who could help us to expand our capabilities to enter new markets.

For the remainder of fiscal 2027, we have 3 main goals. We plan to pursue Phase II of the Smart Guardian Eye project, finalize our AI-assisted SDK for commercial release in the first half of calendar 2027, and complete Plato's tape-out by seeking strategic partners as we prepare to bring it to market.

Didier will now provide more detail on our business and technology progress, followed by Doug, who will review our financial results and outlook. Afterwards, we will be happy to answer your questions. Didier over to you.

Didier Lasserre

Thank you, Lee-Lean. As we discussed on our last call, our Gemini-II commercialization strategy is to focus our resources on a small number of proof of concepts and early deployment programs. Our goal is to turn these projects into reference applications and apply the software and engineering work to similar opportunities. This approach will allow us to pursue new applications more efficiently without significantly expanding our internal engineering resources.

I'll begin with Smart Guardian Eye in Hsinchu County, Taiwan, where shortly after the quarter end in early October, we achieved our first most visible commercial milestone to date. As Lee-Lean mentioned, the county accepted the initial stage of Phase I, and the system is now providing live AI video monitoring and incident reporting.

As a reminder, the Phase I program covers approximately 20 cameras and demonstrates that Gemini-II can support real-world applications where timely detection and response are crucial to public safety.

Our next opportunity in this project will be Phase II, which is expected to expand the deployment to approximately 80 cameras and introduce automatic speech recognition. We are preparing to submit a proposal once the government issues its quote request. Any additional work we receive on this project will depend on the competitive procurement process and the county's final decision.

The Smart Guardian Eye platform combines image interpretation, event detection, and natural language capabilities that identify relevant activity and help operators respond more rapidly. We are pursuing opportunities to apply these capabilities to other surveillance and smart infrastructure applications, leveraging the software and integration work developed for this project.

This is the model we intend to use: develop a solution for a specific application, demonstrate its performance in the field, and reuse the technology across future deployments.

Let me switch gears now to talk about the AI-assisted SDK that we are now calling GRINN. GRINN. GRINN which stands for GSI Runtime Infrastructure for Neural Networks, is expected to play an important role in our Gemini-II commercialization strategy.

Our software engineers are now using GRINN for model and algorithm development. They can take existing models from open source platforms such as Hugging Face and GitHub and adapt them to run on the APU within hours. GRINN is designed to support a broad range of neural networks, significantly reducing engineering efforts previously required to bring models onto our architecture.

On our last call, we reported that GRINN had reduced development work previously requiring approximately 1 man-year to less than a month. Since then, we have made further improvements, with some development tasks now completed in less than a week. While development times vary depending on the complexity of the model application, these improvements demonstrate GRINN's growing capabilities.

Beyond reducing development time, GRINN has developed an ability to understand the APU architecture and apply that knowledge to optimize how AI models are implemented on our chip. We believe that this hardware-aware approach is an important differentiator from conventional software development tools.

By simplifying model adaptation and reducing engineering effort, GRINN should make it easier and faster for customers and system integrators to evaluate Gemini-II, while allowing GSI to support more simultaneous evaluations. Our development team is incorporating feedback from internal users to further refine GRINN's performance. We expect to release it to initial customers before the end of December 2026, followed by a commercial release in the first half of calendar '27.

Turning to our Sentinel program with G2 Tech. We have completed our chip and software deliverables for the early phase of the project. Laboratory testing demonstrated a fast first to -- I'm sorry, time to first token of approximately 2.4 seconds for the Gemma-3 12B model, meeting the low latency and power efficiency requirements of this drone and perimeter security applications.

The next step is a field demonstration under G2 Tech's leadership. The timing depends on our partner and the participating defense agencies. We currently anticipate that this demonstration could take place in the first half of calendar 2027. A successful demonstration would represent another important validation of Gemini-II, along further funding and commercial orders will depend on subsequent program decisions.

We also continue to advance our government-funded Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR programs. Under the U.S. Army Phase I SBIR award, we are developing a ruggedized Gemini-II-based Edge AI node designed for demanding military environments. This program is valuable because government funding supports the development of the hardware and software that could potentially be adapted by us for other defense applications.

It also allows us to demonstrate the APU's capabilities and systems that operate reliably under difficult field conditions. We expect this project to be completed in summer 2027. In our work with the Space Development Agency, we completed radiation testing on a standard off-the-shelf Gemini-II device. We received and reviewed the single event latch-up test results and are awaiting the final interpretation of the total ionizing dose results.

The preliminary findings based on the single event latch-up test results are very encouraging and indicate that Gemini-II is radiation tolerant. This implies that an off-the-shelf Gemini-II chip can be suitable for certain space and harsh environment applications. We look forward to sharing the information once the final reports are available.

As Lee mentioned, Plato remains on schedule for tape-out in March 2027. We are targeting our first-spin chips for initial sampling by late summer of calendar '27. Plato is designed to deliver AI inference at less than 10 watts, making it suitable for AI processing that takes place locally with limited power, cooling, or access to electricity.

Examples would include battery-powered cameras, small autonomous drones, mobile robots, and remote industrial sensors. To put that into perspective, Plato utilizes about the same amount of power as an LED bulb in a desk lamp. We believe this combination of low power consumption and fast response times would open up a large market for GSI in autonomous systems, robotics, intelligent cameras, and other edge AI applications.

As we experienced with Gemini-II, initial silicon may be suitable for evaluation with software workarounds while additional testing and refinement continue. However, it remains to be seen whether a subsequent chip revision will be necessary before commercial production.

Plato's preliminary performance and power efficiency targets are also attracting interest from potential strategic partners. Partnerships are an important part of our commercialization strategy for Plato. They could provide the resources, software expertise, and market access to pursue new opportunities that we cannot address independently today.

In summary, our recent progress provides further evidence that Gemini-II can perform in real-world customer applications. Going forward, our focus remains on completing existing programs, turning successful projects into additional commercial opportunities, and delivering GRINN to support a broader ecosystem for customers and system integrators. At the same time, we are keeping Plato's development program on schedule and pursuing strategic partners to support its commercialization.

With that, I'll turn it over to Doug. Doug, go ahead, please.

Douglas Schirle

Thank you, Didier. In my comments, I will provide additional context around the second quarter financial results included in the earnings release we issued today after the market close. Revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 was $6 million, within our guidance range but slightly below the midpoint.

During the quarter, some inventory levels were insufficient to fulfill certain customer orders, and extended manufacturing lead times made it more difficult to replenish inventory. As a result, some customer shipments have been delayed, which is also affecting our revenue outlook for the third quarter.

Overall, our SRAM revenue has remained relatively stable over the past 6 quarters, although customer ordering patterns have become more variable in this fiscal year. As we have discussed previously, these fluctuations in customer order patterns can affect quarterly revenue and gross margin.

For example, we had no shipments to Cadence during the second quarter, while sales to KYEC represented 19.7% of net revenues compared to 16.1% in the preceding quarter. Despite the variability in quarterly orders, we continue to anticipate shipments to our customers supporting AI chip design and semiconductor manufacturing.

Shipments to military and defense customers accounted for 46.7% of total shipments in the second quarter, compared with 28.9% in the year-ago quarter and 31.3% in the preceding quarter. This proportion is consistent with historical levels before the recent increase in sales to customers supporting AI chip design and semiconductor manufacturing.

Second quarter gross margin was 48.5%, below our guidance range of 53% to 55%, primarily reflecting higher manufacturing costs related to constraints affecting wafers and outsourced assembly, burn-in, and testing. These cost pressures are continuing into the third quarter. Together with the anticipated product mix, they are affecting our gross margin outlook.

As stated in today's earnings release, we currently anticipate third quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $5 million to $6 million with gross margin of approximately 38% to 40%. To address higher manufacturing costs, we plan to implement customer price increases immediately on new orders and effective January 1 on existing backlog. We're also working with our manufacturing partners to improve inventory availability, while the replenishment will take time given current manufacturing lead times. We anticipate that these measures will support a recovery in revenue and gross margin beginning in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027.

Turning to operating expenses. Total operating expenses increased to $10.4 million compared with $6.7 million in the year-ago quarter and $8.8 million in the preceding quarter. Two factors contributed to this increase. The year-over-year increase in R&D this quarter was primarily driven by external design services related to Plato.

As I've stated on our prior earnings calls, we expect these development costs to continue through the planned tape-out in March 2027. The increase in R&D expenses was partially offset by higher government funding under our SBIR programs. These offsets totaled $556,000 during the quarter compared with $279,000 a year ago and $336,000 in the preceding quarter.

As a reminder, SBIR funding offsets certain development expenses and varies quarterly based on project milestones and the timing of reimbursements. Our software development costs can also be affected by fluctuations in the Israeli shekel relative to the U.S. dollar.

The second factor affecting operating expenses this quarter was an increase in selling, general and administrative expense, primarily related to approximately $2 million of non-routine legal and professional fees associated with an internal assessment of certain vendor matters within our foreign operations. These fees were partially offset by a $600,000 gain from assets received in the vendor settlement, resulting in a net impact of approximately $1.4 million. The internal assessment was concluded during the quarter, and we do not expect significant additional expenses related to these matters.

Further information is included in our earnings release and SEC filings. Operating loss for the second quarter was $7.4 million compared to $5.4 million in the preceding quarter. Our net loss was $7 million, or $0.18 per diluted share.

Turning to the balance sheet, our cash and our cash flow. We ended the quarter with $69.2 million in cash and cash equivalents compared with $77 million at June 30, 2026. Net cash used in operating activities was approximately $8 million during the quarter, reflecting spending on Plato development, Gemini-II commercialization, and the internal assessment discussed earlier. You can find the detail of the cash flow in today's earnings release.

Our operating cash usage this quarter exceeded our previously discussed expectation of approximately $4.0 million per quarter, primarily for the reasons I just reviewed. Despite the higher cash usage this quarter and based on our current operating plan, we continue to anticipate quarterly cash usage of approximately $4 million, or $16 million annually, as we complete Gemini-II software development and advance Plato toward tape-out. Actual cash usage may vary depending on the timing of development milestones and other program activities.

We ended the quarter with no debt and a cash balance of $69.2 million, above the $67.2 million we reported as of the end of fiscal 2026. Our debt-free balance sheet provides the financial resources to continue our planned investments in Gemini-II commercialization, including software development and ongoing development of Plato, while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Operator, at this point, please open the call to Q&A.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from David Williams of Needham.

Perguntas e respostas

David Williams

I guess maybe first, maybe around the constraints that you mentioned and maybe some of the order patterns. And if you can maybe give us a little more color around where you're seeing the constraints and the magnitude of those and where you think you might have an opportunity to overcome some of that in the next couple of quarters?

Douglas Schirle

Well, we have issues with customers, particularly the larger customers, that as much as we tell them that they need to place backlog given the manufacturing constraints that we're seeing and lead times we're seeing, that hasn't happened yet. A lot of our smaller customers have placed backlog, and that's probably okay. But the real issue has been with the larger customers with the higher volume products.

Didier Lasserre

Yes. And that also is coupled with the extension on the lead times, substrate lead times, assembly lead times have all gone out as well. So it's between those 2, it's affected -- that's the constraint.

David Williams

Okay. Great. And then maybe, Didier, I think you had mentioned the strategic partners in your script. And just wonder if you can elaborate a bit more on those strategic partners, what that could look like and maybe when you expect to be able to announce something more solid there.

Didier Lasserre

That's a good question. We can't discuss anything yet because nothing is signed at this point. We are having discussions and as we discussed, it would be to bring us into a market or markets that we are currently not addressing ourselves.

And so it's certainly interesting for us for that to have somebody else do the development, both on the hardware system side along with the software to support those. And so we've been negotiating for some time now. There might be something by the end of this year or into early next year.

David Williams

Okay. Great. And then maybe just any color on the SDK, like the GRINN, I believe, is what you've named that. But maybe just talk about that expectation. Obviously, it's doing better today. You said 1 week versus a month in terms of how quickly that's accelerating. But it seems like that platform opens a lot of opportunities and really gets you close to that commercialization. And one, I guess, is that fair? And then what maybe are you most encouraged by from -- that you've seen from GRINN so far?

Didier Lasserre

Yes, absolutely. We need the software tools. Up until now, we've been completely reliant on our Israeli team for all of the models and algorithm development. And as you guys know, it's -- we have limited resources within the company. And so in that respect, it limits what we can do. And so what we're doing now, and we kind of discussed this, is to try and different POCs.

We've done a drone. We're in a smart city. We're looking at other POCs. And that shows that we're viable for a certain market. But then in order to attract customers and integrators to really address all the customers within those markets, they're going to need the tools.

And so with GRINN, it's going to allow them to develop their own algorithms and models without us helping them. And because, again, we just can't scale that way the way we're doing it now. So GRINN is going to be critical for us to be able to build the ecosystem for all the customers along the markets.

David Williams

Great. Fantastic. And then maybe just lastly, you talked a little bit about seeing some interest in Plato. Can you talk a little bit about the different platforms and where you're seeing the interest between Gemini and Plato and maybe just the size of the magnitude of that interest today? And that's all for me.

Lee-Lean Shu

Yes. We -- we are seeing all kind of use cases for Plato from the battery operator, operation to industrial PC to enterprise server, even to the data center. So we can almost see the whole spectrum of the AI application with Plato. That's why we are talking about we are talking to strategic partners to take part in some of those larger markets because we don't have that much resource to go into each market to develop the application for that, yes. So pretty much that's what we are seeing right now.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call over to Lee-Lean Shu for any closing remarks.

Lee-Lean Shu

Our goals for the coming quarter -- upcoming quarter are straightforward: execute on the customer programs now underway, continue advancing GRINN development, and deliver the next milestones in the road map while pursuing the strategic partnership that can support its commercialization. We appreciate the continued support of our shareholders and look forward to reporting on our progress.

One final note, I'd like to remind listeners that Didier will attend the Roth Technology Conference on November 18. Please contact your ROTH representative to book a meeting. We are also participating in the annual Needham Growth Conference in January 2027, and we encourage you to reach out to your Needham representative to book one-on-one meetings. Thank you again for joining us today and for your continued interest in GSI Technology.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.