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Marvell Acquires Celestial AI and XCON; Celestial Photonic Fabric with EM Modulators Already Selected by Tier-1 Hyperscaler; Scale-Up Optics Revenue Forecast Doubled to ~$300M
Matt Murphy· Marvell Technology· AI· 2026-05-23· about Marvell Technology; Celestial AI; XCON (MRVL)
“The solution [Celestial AI photonic fabric with EM modulators] has already been selected by a tier 1 hyperscaler for its next generation of XPU scaleup networks...we expect our scale up scale up optics business to ramp significantly next fiscal year with revenue forecasted to more than double our prior outlook of approximately 150 million.”
Why it matters
Marvell is vertically integrating silicon photonics and photonic fabric design to serve NPO/CPO (network/co-packaged optics) scale-up use cases. Celestial's early design win signals immediate customer validation and de-risks the technology ramp.
Investment implication
Suppliers of high-speed analog ICs, modulator drivers, and photonic process IP are enabled. TSMC's advanced photonics capabilities (chiplets, chiplet assembly) become critical. Competitors lacking integrated photonics (Broadcom, Marvell's traditional suppliers) face displacement risk in scale-up segments.