Weekly|Join us at Tomorrow X Summit, OCP Meet-up, Gemini 4 Returns, MU Visibility to 2028, ECOC and FCC Optics, FTAI Power, Muse Software,

First of all, we are honored to be at Tomorrow X Summit in Austin on November 17–18 as a sponsor and partner, with more than ten team members attending and a session on how companies can build their own context layers for AI workflows. The FUNDA community can get 20% off passes through the registration link in our announcement. Join us and do let us know if you are visiting!

Before that, a couple of our team members will host a new Happy Hour in San Jose, CA on Oct 13 during the OCP Global Summit. If you are around, please RSVP and we will reach out once your registration is approved and confirmed. Look forward to seeing you there as well.

Coming back to research, Google’s return to frontier competition gives us another reason to stay constructive on compute demand. We argued in August that Google would keep investing despite the management departures and delayed model release; Gemini 4 now supports that view. Our work on open-weight models points in the same direction: as access to full reasoning traces tightens, developers will need to spend more on their own reinforcement learning, synthetic data and training environments. The recent low-cost catch-up looks difficult to sustain, while several well-funded labs remain in the race.

Micron puts longer-term demand into a more tangible frame. More than 75% of its CY27 output is already committed through SCAs and advance purchase orders, and customer discussions are shifting toward CY28 allocation. That supports our view of a higher, longer memory-price plateau. The headline gross-margin guide looked softer than the buy-side bar, but our adjustment for incentive compensation and new-fab costs puts it above expectations. We continue to focus on how long the supply shortage lasts.

Optics stocks also responded to the prospect of a more workable FCC framework, particularly Lumentum and Coherent. There is no public draft yet: the reported 65% U.S.-company BOM threshold remains a scenario under discussion. If adopted, it could support U.S. component suppliers while allowing leading Chinese module makers to keep serving customers. Our ECOC conversations separately reinforced the NPO ramp and the search for lower-power optical links; in power generation, FTAI’s first Mod-1 deliveries and customer acceptance in Q4 are the next concrete tests of another route to faster data-center energization.

This Week’s Reports

Gemini 4 and open-weight models: frontier competition continues to require more compute. Google is back in contention, while tighter access to reasoning traces makes cheap distillation harder and increases the need for developers’ own training investment.

MU: demand visibility now reaches 2028. More than 75% of CY27 output is committed, and management expects CY27–28 supply-demand conditions to be tighter than in 2026, supporting the longer price plateau we outlined before the results.

Optics: NPO is moving toward products, while the FCC outcome could be better than feared. Our ECOC fieldwork tracks the architectures and supply constraints behind the ramp, and our policy column examines a reported U.S.-component threshold that remains under discussion rather than an adopted rule.

FTAI: aviation aftermarket capabilities meet the demand for earlier power. We initiate with a focus on Q4 Mod-1 delivery and acceptance, modeling about 80 deliveries in 2027 while assessing how aftermarket share gains can offset margin pressure.

Meta Muse: identifying the software behind completed tasks. Our review maps 25 products from 24 listed companies across communications, productivity, travel and commerce, distinguishing tested workflows from identified connections and treating additional revenue as unproven.

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