Aeluma (ALMU) 2026 財年第四季法說會：AI 資料通訊商業化與 5,600 萬美元現金餘額

重點摘要

• Aeluma 公布 2026 財年第四季營收為 58.2 萬美元，全年營收為 450 萬美元，接近第三季法說會預測區間的上限。全年營收與 2025 財年的 470 萬美元大致持平，且主要仍與政府合約掛鉤。
• 2026 財年 GAAP 淨虧損由 2025 財年的 300 萬美元（或每股 0.23 美元）擴大至 920 萬美元（或每股 0.52 美元）。管理層將虧損擴大主因歸咎於員工人數增加及其他營運費用上升。
• 截至財年底，現金及現金等價物達 5,600 萬美元，高於 3 月當季末的 3,780 萬美元及一年前的 1,570 萬美元。Aeluma 無任何債務。
• AI 資料通訊（AI DataCom）是該公司近期的商業化重心。研發重點集中於在非磷化銦基板上製造的 LINX 高速光電探測器與 Quasar 量子點雷射。
• 展望 2027 財年，Aeluma 預計將認列約 230 萬美元已獲簽署的政府合約營收，另有 200 萬美元的潛在商機正在洽談中。公司未提供正式的營收指引。
• 管理層預計 2027 財年的資本支出約為 1,000 萬至 1,200 萬美元，主要用於採購兩台 AIXTRON G10 MOCVD 反應爐以及相關的製造、測試與驗證能力建置。

主要財務結果

在第四季期間，Aeluma 透過按市價發行 (ATM) 機制以平均每股 24.87 美元的價格發行了 830,484 股，產生 2,010 萬美元的淨收益。

業務與營運表現

Aeluma 正將其商業化資源集中於 AI 資料中心互連技術。管理層引用 Dell’Oro Group 的預測指出，2030 年資料中心資本支出可能達到 1.8 兆美元，其中約 10% 至 15% 將分配給光子技術。

LINX S 系列光電探測器針對傳輸速率介於每秒數個 Gb 至 64 Gb 之間的「慢而寬」（slow-and-wide）、短距離 AI 互連需求。管理層認為，隨著部署規模在 2028 年至 2030 年間擴大，這些應用可能代表著龐大的出貨量商機。

LINX F 系列專為「快而窄」（fast-and-narrow）橫向擴充（scale-out）互連所開發，初始目標為單通道每秒 224 Gb，隨後將達單通道每秒 448 Gb。管理層表示，與客戶的互動重點在於替換現有元件以及為新架構定義規格。

Quasar 產品系列採用 MOCVD 量子點雷射技術。客戶目前正在評估該雷射的高溫運作性能、可靠性及無光隔離器封裝（isolator-free packaging）。Aeluma 表示，其方法旨在支援大批量生產，同時減少對磷化銦基板的依賴。

該公司已與住友化學先進技術（Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies）簽署協議，利用現有的 MOCVD 設備擴充磊晶晶圓產能。Aeluma 亦正在採購多台 AIXTRON G10 MOCVD 系統，並與化合物半導體及矽晶圓代工夥伴合作，支援從 150 毫米到高達 300 毫米的晶圓尺寸。

Aeluma 的員工人數已從 2025 年 6 月 30 日的 14 人增加至法說會舉辦時的 30 多人。管理層計劃進一步招聘人力，以支援產品開發、專案執行與商業化。

管理層展望

由於數項待決合約可能對結果產生重大影響，Aeluma 未發布正式的 2027 財年營收指引。

公司預計 2027 財年將有約 230 萬美元目前已獲簽署的政府合約營收。公司亦正在洽談高達 200 萬美元的額外政府商機，以及數項與潛在客戶簽署的價值數百萬美元商業非經常性工程費用（NRE）協議。近期多數 NRE 洽談均與 AI 資料通訊相關，但時間點與完成情況仍具不確定性。

Aeluma 仍繼續就美國商務部晶片研發辦公室（CHIPS R&D Office）高達 3,000 萬美元的潛在資助談判最終條款。根據目前的結構，管理層預計最終敲定的資助可能將會被視為美國政府的股權投資，而非營收。

2027 財年的資本支出預計總計約為 1,000 萬至 1,200 萬美元。管理層將計劃採購的兩台 MOCVD 反應爐歸類為一次性投資，旨在加速製程開發與量產規模化，且不會改變 Aeluma 的輕資產（capital-light）模式。

財務長表示，2027 財年第一季的營運費用預計不會相較於第四季的高點大幅增加。隨後，隨著公司增加研發資源與員工人數，費用預計將逐漸上升。

風險與關注焦點

• 由於額外的政府計畫與商業 NRE 協議仍在洽談中，2027 財年的營收能見度有限。
• 提議中的《晶片法案》（CHIPS）資助仍需進行盡職調查及最終協議談判，其最終條款與會計處理方式尚未完成。
• Aeluma 正刻意對政府研發合約展現更高的篩選度，在資源轉向商業計畫之際，這可能會減少近期的合約營收。
• 商業化進展取決於客戶認證、供應鏈夥伴的執行力，以及磊晶、測試與驗證產能的成功擴充。
• 管理層指出磷化銦基板的短缺、成本上漲及擴充性受限為產業限制因素。Aeluma 的策略取決於客戶採納其替代基板平台。
• 員工人數上升、研發支出與製造投資增加擴大了虧損，且預計在第一財季之後將使營運費用持續呈上升趨勢。

分析師問答焦點

管理層確認 AI 資料通訊在 2027 財年仍將是 Aeluma 主要的商業化重心，儘管該技術平台在行動電子產品等市場中仍具有潛在應用價值。

關於客戶動態，管理層表示商業 NRE 計畫的談判幾乎完全與 AI 資料通訊相關。客戶的興趣是由當前的供應瓶頸以及對本十年後期需求擴大時產業計劃產能可能仍不足的疑慮所驅動。

Aeluma 正同時向光電探測器與量子點雷射分配資源，而非優先發展單一技術。管理層看到可插拔光收發器（pluggable transceivers）、近封裝光學（NPO）與共封裝光學（CPO）對高速接收器、「慢而寬」探測器陣列及高功率雷射的需求。

管理層亦表示，向 NPO 與 CPO 轉型可能會創造商機，因為新架構可能需要客製化元件、先進封裝以及與 CMOS 更緊密的晶圓級整合。然而，公司預計可插拔、NPO 與 CPO 形式將會共存，而非單一架構完全取代其他架構。

完整法說會逐字稿

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

Operator

Thank you. Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Aeluma's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions]

Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Moira Conlon, Investor Relations for Aeluma. Please go ahead.

Moira Conlon

Good afternoon, and welcome to Aeluma's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Call. I am here today with Founder and CEO, Dr. Jonathan Klamkin, and CFO, Christopher Stewart. Discussions and responses to questions may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. The risks and uncertainties are detailed in the earnings press release issued today, along with the reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

These reports, along with today's earnings release and fourth quarter presentation, which we will reference during this conference call, can be found under the investor section of our website. Aeluma assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this call. Throughout the discussion, the company will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings press release and SEC filings. Now I will turn the call over to Aeluma's CEO, Jonathan Klamkin.

Jonathan Klamkin

Thank you, Moira, and thank you all for joining today's call. We are delighted to share a recap of our fiscal 2026 and to provide an outlook on Aeluma's path to commercialization.

The AI DataCom market opportunity has continued to become a priority for us. Demand for high-performance photonics is at an all-time high, with data center CapEx investments expected to reach $1.8 trillion in 2030, according to Dell'Oro Group, of which approximately 10% to 15% is for photonics. As illustrated in Slide 4, we explicitly built our technology platform for this scale. Our proprietary heterogeneous integration with large diameter non-indium phosphide substrates combines high performance materials with mass market microelectronics manufacturing.

To capitalize on the AI opportunity, in fiscal 2026, we prioritized resources to accelerate development and commercialization of our high-speed photodetectors and quantum dot lasers, which are applicable across a broad range of data center connectivity, including slow and wide short reach interconnects, fast and narrow interconnects, pluggable transceivers, near packaged optics or NPO, and co-packaged optics or CPO. Many traditional photonics components for data centers depend on indium phosphide substrates, which have become a bottleneck for suppliers and their customers. Aeluma's technologies are manufactured with non-indium phosphide substrates that may range in size from 150 millimeter or 6-inch to 200 millimeter and up to 300 millimeter.

Aeluma's photodetector and laser technologies have undergone significant foundational development, thanks in part to non-dilutive government funding. We have always been selective in bidding on government contracts that are synergistic with our commercial ambitions. An example is a Navy program that commenced in fiscal 2024 to develop high-speed photodetectors for short-reach links, a technology that is highly relevant to slow and wide data center interconnects for scale-up AI workloads. This Navy program has transitioned successfully into a second phase to focus on higher speed operation and transceiver integration.

We have also made considerable progress with customers evaluating our differentiated photonics platform, which eliminates the need for indium phosphide substrates, supports high-volume manufacturing, and provides a path to CMOS wafer-scale integration and packaging. These engagements have helped shape the development of our LINX S-Series photodetectors, which target data rates from a few gigabits per second to 64 gigabits per second. Based on customer discussions and market forecasts, we believe these applications represent a substantial volume opportunity as deployments scale in 2028 through 2030. To support fast and narrow 200 gigabits per second per lane and future 400 gigabits per second per lane for scale-out interconnects, we are developing our LINX F-Series photodetectors.

This represents another significant potential opportunity in the growing AI DataCom market. The non-dilutive government funding we secured played an important role in advancing our technology while also providing a potential long-term customer relationship with the U.S. Navy. As the AI DataCom market accelerates and demand grows over the next several years, we have prioritized our resources on the commercialization of our high-speed photodetectors to capture this opportunity.

Another example is funding from the [ Office of Secretary of War ] and from NASA to advance our MOCVD quantum dot laser technology. Today, our DataCom customers are evaluating our non-indium phosphide quantum dot lasers for high temperature operation, reliability, and isolator-free packaging. Our Quasar family of quantum dot lasers currently under development aims to address the demand for high-power lasers in scale-up and scale-out networks. We believe we are uniquely positioned as the first company to offer quantum dot lasers using MOCVD, an industry standard for high-throughput production. MOCVD, for example, is used exclusively for large volume VCSEL manufacturing for facial recognition in mobile phones.

Given the scale of investment and projects already underway for data center buildouts, we are more commercially focused than ever before. We stated that fiscal 2026 would establish the foundation for transitioning to commercialization. We delivered on this objective by expanding our team, establishing manufacturing supply chain partners, bolstering cash, and focusing on our go-to-market strategy. At June 30, 2025, Aeluma had 14 employees. As of today, we have more than 30 employees, and we plan to recruit additional talent to execute our strategic priorities.

In June, we announced the appointment of Dr. Brendan Moran as VP of Engineering, whose distinguished career at Lumileds included leading product strategy and development for mobile photonics components that generated $300 million in annual revenue, 8 consecutive design-ins for a high-profile mobile component, customer, and shipping of billions of photonics chips. Brendan is driving Aeluma's product development and commercialization efforts with an emphasis on photodetectors and lasers for AI DataCom. Along with Dr. Willy Rachmady, Aeluma's VP of Strategic Partnerships and Ecosystem, and myself, Brendan is helping advance our engagements with customers and define technology and product development roadmaps. We believe our product-focused strategy will benefit our business and our shareholders.

We also recently appointed Jason Taylor as Senior Director of Program and Project Management. Jason has nearly 3 decades of experience in program management at Intel, Kyocera, Lumileds, and other organizations. Jason is leading program management across Aeluma and is building out a program management system to ensure timely execution of priority programs, including high speed photodetectors and quantum dot lasers for AI DataCom. Such a system is key to delivering on our strategic priorities.

I am also proud to welcome Dr. Pramit Parikh as a strategic advisor. Pramit was VP and GM of the Gallium Nitride Business Division at Renesas following the acquisition of Transphorm Inc., premier in gallium nitride power semiconductors that Pramit co-founded and led from inception, its public company listing, and acquisition by Renesas. He also held leadership positions at Nitronex and Cree. His expertise spans several areas important to Aeluma, including high-performance semiconductors, AI data centers, manufacturing, IP strategy, and partnerships. This provides a strategic and operational perspective to Aeluma as we position the company for commercial growth. We are again adding more office and meeting space to support our growing team. And while we continue to be stewards of capital, the time for making investments in growth is now.

Moving through fiscal 2027 and beyond, we will be even more selective with government funding and more commercially focused. This may mean sacrificing near-term government contract revenue to focus resources toward achieving commercial revenue and growth opportunities, which is what matters in generating long-term shareholder value. In previous communications, we shared our intention to move away from early-stage government funding and instead focus on opportunities that accelerate manufacturing and commercialization. Consistent with that strategy, on July 29, we announced a letter of intent with the Department of Commerce, CHIPS R&D Office, for up to $30 million to accelerate development and commercialization of our scalable photonics for AI and advanced computing.

This is not for a specific [ Department of War ] or NASA or Department of Energy or other agency-driven application with technical metrics established by the government agency. For the Department of Commerce program, we proposed Aeluma's own vision. That is, to build the world's highest performance photonics with scalable manufacturing, leveraging domestic capabilities and advanced intellectual property to overcome supply chain constraints and to meet the demand for critically important AI and technology and advanced compute infrastructure investments. These themes have been central to Aeluma's strategy since our founding. The CHIPS initiative is aimed at supporting semiconductor innovation across integrated photonics, compute architectures, advanced packaging, substrates, materials, and memory for the AI and advanced compute supply chain. Strategic government investment could accelerate our development and commercialization efforts.

On scaling, I am happy to announce that we recently executed an important agreement with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies to strengthen our relationship, increase wafer production capacity, leveraging existing MOCVD tools that we can run our processes on, and provide a path for further increasing capacity in the future. We have been engaged with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies for several years, and this new agreement will support commercialization efforts and will complement Aeluma's in-house capability. The official focus of this effort is on high-speed photodetectors for AI DataCom. For future scaling, we are procuring multiple AIXTRON G10 MOCVD systems. These types of tools are already in use by major Tier 1 photonics component manufacturers for lasers and other photonics components for AI DataCom. Aeluma recently configured these tools to implement our proprietary non-indium phosphide substrate processes, and we are planning for installation.

While our precise strategy is confidential, we have communicated our multi-pronged approach to leverage different non-indium phosphide substrate types and sizes to pair technology with market demand in the most economical and strategic way. As we shared on our Q3 earnings call, we work with several supply chain partners. These include both compound semiconductor fabs and silicon fabs, whose capabilities range from 150 millimeter fabrication to 200 millimeter and some up to 300 millimeter. For many of our target markets, 150 millimeter wafers, either gallium arsenide or silicon, are appropriate. Aeluma's use of non-indium phosphide substrates at this size and partnership with Volume Microelectronics Foundries provides a path to scale and meet demand while overcoming supply chain constraints and winning on cost.

Aeluma produces starting wafers in-house, but also works with partners such as Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies for scaling, and we have recently strengthened this relationship with a new agreement. Following epitaxy wafer production, our proprietary wafers are sent to foundries and other supply chain partners and then returned to Aeluma for test and validation. Like other photonics IDMs, or Integrated Device Manufacturers, Aeluma has developed several key compound semiconductor technologies to address different uses and functions, such as wavelength specifications and market applications. As illustrated in Slide 5, while our technology platform is broadly applicable, our current commercialization focus is AI DataCom.

Referring to Slide 6, we are leveraging our large diameter substrate platform to commercialize our LINX high speed photodetectors and our Quasar quantum dot laser technologies. LINX is designed to address both scale-up and scale-out AI interconnects. Aeluma's non-indium phosphide platform is attractive to customers who need to overcome supply chain constraints and enable scaling with a roadmap for wafer scale integration with CMOS, which is key for the slow and wide scale-up AI interconnects. And to cover the playing field, the LINX F-Series photodetectors are aimed at fast and narrow 224 and then 448 gigabits per second scale-out AI interconnects. Our MOCVD quantum dot technology is driving Quasar product development.

Current laser technology for AI interconnects is based on indium phosphide. And as we have continually messaged, indium phosphide substrates are in short supply, are small, expensive, and fragile. And the indium phosphide manufacturing doesn't scale to large volumes. Investment in 6-inch indium phosphide are being made, but this will take time to qualify. And costs of 6-inch indium phosphide substrates are increasing. Also, indications are that 6-inch indium phosphide is not sufficient for the AI infrastructure build-out. Our LINX effort is focused on 6-inch gallium arsenide manufacturing initially, but will also leverage larger diameter silicon manufacturing in the future to enable further scaling and direct integration with silicon photonics. Our MOCVD approach is key to supporting this roadmap.

Looking forward to fiscal 2027 and beyond, our enthusiasm continues to grow. AI DataCom opportunity is driving our near-term product-focused commercialization efforts. In addition to prospective capital from the CHIPS program that is under definitive agreement negotiations, we are negotiating several multimillion-dollar NRE agreements with commercial customers. NRE programs with top-tier manufacturers are an effective way to accelerate qualification and commercialization. We are ramping activities with our supply chain partners, expanding MOCVD manufacturing capabilities, and will continue to build out our team to support commercialization. It is highly motivating to see Aeluma's vision come to life as we execute our go-to-market strategy and the demand for high-performance photonics grows at unprecedented rates. Now I will turn the call over to our CFO, Chris Stewart, to discuss the financials.

Christopher Stewart

Thanks, Jonathan. Over the last year, the opportunity for Aeluma, particularly in the AI data center interconnect market, has really come into focus. Projections for the size of the opportunity continue to increase dramatically. We hear from customers and partners that our technology is well positioned to support an industry that is currently struggling to scale up to meet the demand. This year, we made significant progress towards commercialization, and I am confident in our team's ability to execute our strategy and capitalize on the opportunity.

Now I will review our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 financial results. Revenue in Q4 was $582,000, resulting in total revenue of $4.5 million for the year, near the high end of the range we provided on our Q3 call. Revenue primarily reflects our government contracts, was approximately flat to the $4.7 million we reported for fiscal 2025. GAAP net loss for the fourth quarter is $4 million, or $0.22 per share. The full fiscal year net loss was $9.2 million, $0.52 per share, compared to a net loss of $3 million, $0.23 per share in fiscal '25. Excluding stock-based compensation, adjusted net loss for the fourth quarter, $2.7 million, or $0.15 per share. Adjusted net loss for the full fiscal year $4.6 million, or $0.26 per share, compared to an adjusted net loss of $116,000, or $0.01 per share, in fiscal 2025.

Adjusted EBITDA was negative $2.9 million for the quarter and negative $5.2 million for the year, compared to negative $911,000 last quarter, positive adjusted EBITDA of $186,000 fiscal 2025. The greater net loss and lower adjusted EBITDA are primarily driven by increased headcount and other operating expenses.

We closed the fourth quarter with a strong balance sheet, including $56 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $37.8 million at the close of the March quarter, $15.7 million at June 30, 2025. We continue to have no debt on our balance sheet. During the fourth quarter, we issued 830,484 shares under our ATM facility at an average price of $24.87, netting proceeds of $20.1 million. As you may recall, in March, we established a $50 million ATM facility to provide flexibility to raise capital believe it is in the best interest of our shareholders. We believe that maintaining a strong balance sheet is critical to executing against the significant growth opportunity we see ahead, reinforcing our credibility with customers and partners. At the same time, we remain committed to operating in a disciplined manner.

Now, I will provide some color on our outlook for fiscal 2027. Over the past several years, government R&D contracts have been a great source of non-dilutive funding for development and relationship building. While we will continue to execute on R&D programs that are aligned with our commercial direction, our focus in fiscal 2027 is on commercialization. We expect to recognize approximately $2.3 million currently booked government contract revenue fiscal 2027 with the potential for an additional $2 million of opportunities under discussion. As Jonathan mentioned, we are also in discussions with several prospective marquee customers regarding commercial NRE programs that may bring additional revenue in fiscal 2027. We are continuing to work through diligence and drafting of the definitive agreements related to our letter of intent with the Department of Commerce, CHIPS R&D Office, for up to $30 million in funding.

While the terms are not yet final, our current understanding is that if finalized, this award is likely to be accounted for as an equity investment in Aeluma by the U.S. government and not as revenue of our previous government R&D contracts. We are proud to have been selected for this high-profile program centered around the development and commercialization of our products for AI. We have always viewed the U.S. government as a strategic partner, and an investment in Aeluma would help accelerate our commercialization efforts.

With respect to manufacturing, we are focused on expanding epitaxy wafer production capacity, Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies, qualifying our processes with additional supply chain partners, and expanding our capabilities through the purchase of the latest generation of MOCVD reactors, test and validation tools. As such, we expect to make meaningful investments in fiscal 2027, anticipating capital expenditures of approximately $10 to $12 million. These investments are not a departure from our capital light model, but will help position us to ramp our proprietary process with supply chain partners.

Finally, we will continue investing in the talent, systems, and processes needed to support customer and product development programs, and to scale the business, move to towards commercialization. We made investments in talent in fiscal 2026. Going forward, we will continue to build the organizational foundation required to execute our strategy. With our strong balance sheet and potential CHIPS funding, we believe we are well positioned to make prudent investments to capitalize the tremendous opportunity we see ahead to create long-term value for our shareholders. I will turn the call back over to Jonathan, his closing remarks, before we open the call to your questions.

Jonathan Klamkin

Thank you, Chris. To summarize, we are pleased with the progress made in fiscal 2026 to establish the foundation to transition to commercialization. We continue to execute our strategic priorities and are committed to our go-to-market strategy with a near-term focus on our LINX high-speed photodetectors and Quasar quantum dot laser technologies for the AI DataCom market. As always, I want to thank our incredible team for their hard work and dedication, and I want to thank all of you for your unwavering support and enthusiasm. You can now open the call for questions. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

The first question will come from [ Daniel Yermackin ] with [ Freedom Broker ]. Please go ahead.

分析師問答

Unknown Analyst

Hey, guys, congrats with big steps to the commercialization. Just a quick question. Last quarter you mentioned, the shortfall of fiscal 2026 revenue was entirely tied based with the delayed government programs, so does it mean that the revenues going to carry on on fiscal 2027?

Christopher Stewart

Well, the revenue, as we talked about in the first remarks, we are not providing official guidance this year, mainly because there is a handful of contracts that could really change the range quite a bit. We continue to deliver on the projects that we signed last year, and there are some programs that are continuing on from prior years. As we said, that book revenue, including the new contracts that we signed this year, is about $2.3 million. And then clearly there is a number of things that could bring upside from there, but at this point, you know, we are prepared to give more visibility than that.

Unknown Analyst

Okay, thanks. Comparing 2 end markets, the AI and data center with the mobile and electronics market, where is your near-term focus now? Is it on photodetectors of data centers or do you focus more on mobile and market?

Jonathan Klamkin

We remain active in other markets and, for example, mobile and have some indications of the size of opportunities and timeline of those opportunities. But mobile, for example, is a market with a more concentrated customer base. AI DataCom as a market is really at the forefront for us right now and for the entire industry. So this is the focus of our near-term commercialization efforts. But I think we should always remember that given the nature of our technology, anything we do to advance commercialization for 1 market will benefit others. It is just that today the focus, today and into fiscal 2027 is AI DataCom.

Unknown Analyst

Okay, thanks. That makes sense. Yeah, that's it from my side. Thank you.

Operator

The next question will come from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Richard Shannon

Well, great. Thanks, Jonathan and Christopher. Let me ask a couple questions here. Jonathan, I wanted to ask about your commentary about in some stage of negotiation with multiple contracts with NRE. I wanted to get a little bit more detail here. If I caught the language right now, I probably missed some of it, but I want to be clear here. This sounds like this is all entirely within the DataCom market in some manner. Is that accurate or are there other engagements in other market areas as well?

Jonathan Klamkin

I would say it is almost entirely in the AI data market in the near term. That is correct.

Richard Shannon

Okay. Kind of what I thought, but I just want to make sure. So can you maybe talk about how long these discussions have been in place here and any sense of urgency you are seeing? You know, the themes that you have been talking about for last conference calls really revolve around supporting supply chain issues and we have seen other companies in the broader space that we cover pretty well. That suggests there is that their urgency is only increasing here. So I would imagine this is getting pretty, you know, accelerating and going pretty quickly and a lot of interest here. So maybe you can help us understand, you know, the breadth and depth and the stage of some of these discussions, if you would, please.

Jonathan Klamkin

Yes, I would say in the AI DataCom market, that is correct. A lot of this is centered around supply chain constraints and how large the market opportunity is. And it seems like every time, forecasts are put out, they revisit and increase the forecasts, especially in that sort of 2028 through 2030 and even beyond timeframe. And what we are seeing is that our customers and some of these discussions we are having to initiate NRE programs come from the fact that there are investments being made to sort of fill the gap in the but investments being made are not going to be sufficient for that market a few years out.

So without sharing significant detail, you can imagine what this relates to. I spoke about sort of different substrate sizes that we are leveraging now, but how Aeluma's technology could take us to other substrate sizes in the future. So there is interest in our technology to fill the gap now, but also to fill the gap that is expected for years to come, just because of how significant this build-out is.

Richard Shannon

Okay, that is helpful. Looking at the DataCom opportunity or another angle here, your prepared remarks and your slides here, you talk about both photodetectors and quantum dot lasers here. I want to get a sense of the balance between those 2, even in terms of, you know, the number of engagements focused on one or the other and the opportunity sitting in front of you, wise over time. If you could just kind of qualitatively describe that, that would be great, Jonathan.

Jonathan Klamkin

Yes, I mean, they are both significant. I cannot quantify precisely on the call, but they are both very significant. And I think we have shared information in the past that typically people think about the lasers, everyone is hearing about the lack of indium phosphide substrates and the need for more and more lasers in the AI DataCom market. And there is plenty of discussions about the type of modulator that might be selected or types of modulators that might be selected as the industry starts to roll out 400G per lane beyond the 100 and 200G per lane, but sort of the forgotten technology is the photodetector and there is 2 angles there.

Photodetectors need to keep up with those modulation speeds, the full photodetector receiver, and there is sort of this emerging market for slow and wide transceiver components. And those require arrays of emitters, micro LEDs, micro pixels, and then arrays of photodetectors that might have different specifications or characteristics than photodetectors that you can buy on the shelf. And that is what we refer to in the slide, the LINX S-Series for sort of the slow and wide and the LINX F-Series for fast and narrow. This market seems to be very significant in size in the coming years. And the laser market, I think most of us know, is so significant.

Some of the suppliers of lasers or AI DataCom would be selling many more lasers than they are selling today if they had more indium phosphide substrates and if they had more FAB capacity. So I will just close this thought on, you know, we are still a relatively small company, but these 2 technologies are so important that we are not going to choose to develop just 1 of them. They are so important, and we are putting resources to both. So I would not say one outweighs the other, at least not today. Okay.

Richard Shannon

Okay, that is great characterization. My last question, I will jump back into the queue here, is probably more for Chris here, but just want to get a sense from 2 financial statement line items here, OpEx and CapEx here. So on OpEx here, notably above what we had estimated, but clearly you have been hiring here and a lot of activity going on. Maybe if you could just give us a little bit just characterize how we should expect to see that OpEx in the first quarter this year and then going forward then the CapEx here. Is this kind of a one-time, this $10 to $12 million, is that kind of a one-time dynamic? Or could we see subsequent years of, you know, similar level of CapEx? Thank you.

Christopher Stewart

Yep, thanks, Richard. Yes, so a couple things on that. We have been growing headcount through the year. But if you look, really, OpEx did not increase all that much from Q1 to Q3. And then in Q4, the combination of full-quarter full quarter salaries for folks that we were hiring through Q3 and early Q4, as well as some kind of normal kind of year-end accruals and things caused a little bit of an unusual bump in Q4. So I would not expect a big increase in Q1, if any. And then going forward, like we said, we are going to continue to invest both in the R&D side and in headcount, so it will drift up from there.

The big CapEx this year is the 2 MOCVD reactors that we talked about in the call, and, you know, I do not really want to guide CapEx beyond that, but like I said, it is not a change to our capital light model. So, yes, we are increasing these, buying these 2 tools really to drive and facilitate the transition to scale and help our supply chain partners scale faster and give us a little bit more involvement in the process development. So you have to think about those 2 tools in particular, more of a one-time thing this year and then then as we go forward, we will talk more about the CapEx later.

Richard Shannon

Thanks for all that clarity, guys. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question will come from Suji De Silva with Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Suji De Silva

Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Chris. Congratulations on the progress here. Thank you. Sounds good. Thanks. Yes, no problem. So the CHIPS funding. The $30 million that would phase in. I am wondering, is there any specific plan for that, or would that just be in the general pool of your spending? And, did I hear you right, Chris, because the accounting, is there an equity component the government will hold in Aeluma, or is that now how it will be transacted?

Christopher Stewart

So, again, you know, it is based on the LOI and what we are seeing from the other CHIPS Act deals. It is likely, and again, until everything is finalized, we are not sure. The main point there was it is not likely to be counted as revenue. It will look like an equity investment from the U.S. government. The key thing, you know, and I think the important point is, it is capital that will allow us to accelerate our commercialization efforts. It does support the, the high-speed photodetectors primarily, as Jonathan talked about. And so, you know, you could think of it in a way similar to the government program revenue we have had in the past, but it does not show up on the revenue line. It is still capital, advancing our commercialization efforts on AI data centers.

Suji De Silva

Okay, great. And then perhaps for Jonathan, I know there is just a supply-demand imbalance for lasers and so forth, but does the progression from traditional pluggables to NPO, CPO, does that create more demand for you? Does that have some specific opportunities for you to take advantage of and just can you characterize kind of the move to NPO in the marketplace and whether that is part of the conversations here.

Jonathan Klamkin

I would say yes, but across the board there is, you know, there is demand for pluggables, demand to transition to NPO and in some respects CPO, although I that will slowly roll out and it is not anticipated to sort of take over. These will all sort of sort of operate in unison inside data centers. And obviously the mix of data centers transceiver architectures that are used do depend on specific AI workloads. So this might be, data center or AI customer dependent. To your question, the transition creates additional opportunities for a number of reasons. One, when new formats or architectures are being adopted, that is usually a great time to intersect the market because there might be different needs.

They may not be using off-the-shelf components anymore and some customizations required. And so that is a great opportunity to adopt new technology that does not necessarily exist on the shelf. And we have opportunities in front of us to not only build components with our non-indium phosphide substrate technology to displace what is already in the market, in other words, meet the specifications of data sheets that already exist, but use our same platform to develop new products where data sheets do not necessarily exist. And we are working very closely with our customers to define those data sheets. We have our own internal spec sheets, but they are very customer driven when we build them.

So with photodetectors, there is sort of both opportunities. Building the real high speed photodetectors that are increasingly in high demand as the industry starts to adopt things like 400G per lane transceivers for 800G and 1.8. But then this slow and wide opportunity that does require some customer arrays of emitters and detectors on the receiver end and ideally direct CMOS integration. That is a very important aspect of our technology that our customers are attracted to that not only can we manufacture on bigger substrates that happen to be more available, we are on substrate sizes that are amenable to wafer scale integration and packaging. And so the way we are packaging, some of these detectors for these applications, especially the slow and wide.

It is not sort of the traditional chip-on-carrier or chip-on-submountain wire bond. It leverages more advanced packaging that you do not necessarily have access to when you are on the smaller substrates, like small indium phosphide substrates. And then to your question on lasers, the demand is very high across the board, and certainly for some of the folks that have been developing and are pushing to roll out CPO, they do need these very high power lasers. And there is opportunities to provide scale for those high power lasers that are going to be fed externally into, say, silicon photonic CPO transceivers, and there is some interest in maybe bringing the lasers into the package because there are new cooling technologies being adopted.

And if you bring the laser in the package, you might overcome some of the losses. So you may be able to operate the lasers at lower power and overcome some of the reliability challenges. So I would say for lasers, the demand is just, so high reliability is sort of a top priority for customers, as is sort of simplifying the supply chain, because it is more than just substrates and lasers. It is other aspects like the packaging. And the quantum dot lasers have the potential to eliminate the optical isolator in the package. So for a number of reasons, our customers are interested not only in the scale, of non-indium phosphide, they are very interested in the fact that quantum dot lasers offer these other attributes and that we build quantum dot lasers with MOCVD technology, which scales.

Suji De Silva

Thanks a lot for the question. No, Jonathan, it sounds like interesting conversations. Thanks for the color.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jonathan Klamkin for any closing remarks.

Jonathan Klamkin

Thank you for joining our call today. We look forward to connecting in the future. Have a great day.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.