Preview of new shares | Betting on the next generation of interconnection: How deep is the moat of SeaLight Silicon's technology?

Currently, the AI infrastructure craze continues, with optical modules becoming one of the most highly focused sub-directions in the capital market. Especially as 800G, 1.6T, and silicon photonics technologies gradually enter the industrialization stage, the market is starting to look for the next batch of new companies with breakthrough capabilities. Recently, Haiguangxin, which focuses on the research and production of optoelectronic interconnect products, has officially passed the hearing at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is planning to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Huatai International as the sole sponsor. It is understood that Haiguangxin is not only a provider of optoelectronic interconnect products, but also focuses on silicon photonics technology, and has successfully commercialized applications in AI data centers. From its prospectus, the company is at the intersection of explosive growth in performance and technological transformation, with the construction of its core competitiveness, financial performance, and industry challenges together forming its future development vision. From chip design to module manufacturing, betting on the silicon photonics track As the core label of Haiguangxin, "silicon photonics," the company has already commercialized four silicon photonics optical module products, mainly focusing on rates of 400G and above, and is currently developing next-generation products such as 1.6T and 3.2T. In its prospectus, the company summarizes its differentiation as "end-to-end capabilities from chip design to module manufacturing." While this kind of statement is common in hard tech companies, the key points are whether the company truly masters core device design capabilities, and whether this ability can be translated into scalable manufacturing advantages. From the disclosed information, Haiguangxin is not simply doing packaging and assembly. The company has layout in areas such as silicon photonics chip design, optoelectronic co-design, automated packaging, chip-fiber coupling algorithms, and has established an integrated manufacturing process of "Wafer-In, Module-Out." The research and development team consists of 211 people, accounting for over 45% of total employees. Research and development expenses for 2023 to 2025 are 42.3 million yuan, 63.8 million yuan, and 104 million yuan, respectively. At the industry level, the attractiveness of Silicon photonics is indeed present. As AI training cluster scales expand, the interconnect distances within data centers are becoming shorter, and the bandwidth density higher, revealing the bottlenecks in power consumption and transmission losses of traditional pluggable modules. Silicon photonics solutions can achieve lower power consumption and higher integration under the same bandwidth, making it an important direction for the 1.6T and even 3.2T era. However, the correctness of the technological roadmap does not mean that a startup company will definitely win. First, the silicon photonics industry chain still highly relies on ecosystem cooperation. Although Haiguangxin emphasizes self-developed designs, its production still relies on external systems such as wafer factories, packaging equipment, and testing platforms. As mentioned in the prospectus, the company collaborates with leading wafer factories and Internet companies in AI data centers to develop integrated packaging solutions, indicating that its model is more likely to be "platform integration + process optimization" rather than complete vertical integration. Second, industry competition is not easy. The true strong players in the global AI optical module market are still mature manufacturers like Zhongji Innolight, Eoptolink Technology Inc., Hgtech, and some overseas leaders. These companies have established advantages in 800G products, customer certifications, production capacity, and supply chain control. While Haiguangxin is growing fast, its global market share is only about 1.6% in 2025. Thus, in terms of market share, the company is still in a catching-up stage. More importantly, the silicon photonics industry is not one where a single winner takes all. Different customers have significant differences in preferences for architecture, power consumption, cost, and compatibility, and DSP solutions, LPO/LRO solutions, and AEC solutions may coexist in the long term. Therefore, whether Haiguangxin can truly build barriers depends on its performance in customer certification cycles, yield control, and cost curves, rather than just R&D concepts. When will the profit inflection point come after the surge in revenue? It is understood that in 2023, Haiguangxin's revenue increased from 175 million yuan to 1.221 billion yuan in 2025, nearly a six-fold increase in two years. The proportion of revenue from optical module business increased from 70.6% to 75.7%, and the AOC business also expanded simultaneously. Looking at revenue curves alone, Haiguangxin is undoubtedly very eye-catching. But what the capital market truly cares about is not just "growing fast," but "growing steadily." In terms of profitability, it did not improve in sync with its revenue. The gross profit margin was -17.9% in 2023, turned positive to 11.8% in 2024, but fell back to 9.0% in 2025, with the gross profit margin of the optical module business decreasing from 12.4% in 2024 to 6.7% in 2025. During the past period, the company has not yet achieved profitability. The explanation given by the company in the prospectus is that in 2023, the gross loss was mainly due to a high proportion of low-speed products and high-speed products still being in the climbing phase; the improvement in gross profit in 2024 came from economies of scale; the overall decline in gross profit margin in 2025 is related to product structure and market competition. This explanation holds logical validity, but it also reveals a reality: the high prosperity of the AI optical module industry does not naturally correspond to high profits. In fact, the industry has shown clear trends of price competition. As 800G products gradually scale up, the market is shifting from "supply shortage" to "scale expansion," and customers are increasingly focusing on cost efficiency. For smaller new entrants, obtaining orders often requires more aggressive pricing, while the customer certification period is long, leading to weak bargaining power. Another concern is customer concentration. From 2023 to 2025, the revenue from the top five customers accounted for 95.8%, 70.3%, and 78.7% respectively, with the largest customer accounting for 48.3%, 25.2%, and 21.0% respectively. This concentration is not uncommon in startups in hard tech, but it also means that performance is highly sensitive to a small number of major customers. Looking at the geographical structure, the company's revenue is quickly shifting towards the Chinese market. In 2025, Haiguangxin's revenue from mainland China accounted for 90%, while revenue from the United States decreased to 7.7%. Meanwhile, cash flow is also a cause for concern, as the company's net cash flow from operating activities in 2023 to 2025 was -91.04 million yuan, -255 million yuan, and -359 million yuan respectively. Overall, optical communication is an industry that requires continuous and intense support, and although Haiguangxin sees silicon photonics as a core competitive advantage, whether its existing research and development investment is enough to support it running with the industry's top-tier players during the full arrival of the 1.6T era remains questionable. Against the backdrop of rapidly evolving technological roadmaps, a slight misstep could lead to the risk of widening technological disparities. Currently, Haiguangxin is at a delicate balance point: on one side is the booming AI era dividend, and on the other is the heavy pressure of customer concentration and expanding liquidity gap. How the company can use capital leverage after going public to quickly break through the barriers of overseas markets, achieve diversification in customer structure, and transform into sustained profitability will be the key to whether Haiguangxin can become a leading enterprise with counter-cyclical resilience and technological influence.