Ableprint posts record first-quarter profit as CPO orders set to begin in June

Ableprint’s Q1 profit surge signals CPO (co-packaged optics) crossing the chasm from R&D to volume production. Upstream, equipment makers must accelerate hybrid bonding and thermal solutions; downstream, AI chip giants like NVIDIA are pressuring OSATs to deploy CPO lines ahead of schedule. However, tightening U.S. export controls on advanced packaging tools could disrupt Ableprint’s supply chain if reliant on American components, inflating localization costs. Competitors like ASE and Amkor may counter by locking in partnerships with NVIDIA or Intel to dominate the nascent CPO ecosystem. Over the next 18 months, CPO won’t replace pluggable optics broadly but will gain traction in hyperscaler intra-data-center links, triggering a new capex wave in packaging equipment and forcing TSMC and Samsung to rebalance CoWoS capacity.