Trending Tickers: $AAOI Data Center Order, $KOD Trial Results, $ARM AI Chip

This week, several stocks caught investors’ attention, driven by significant developments and market momentum. Here’s the breakdown of this week’s trending stocks:

Applied Optoelectronics ($AAOI) Lands $53 Million Data Center Order

Applied Optoelectronics ($AAOI), a developer and manufacturer of advanced optical and fiber-optic networking products used in AI data centers, announced it has received a new volume order from one of its major hyperscale customers for 800G single-mode data center transceivers.

According to the company, the order is valued at more than $53 million and is intended to help the customer expand network capacity for AI-driven workloads. The company said this is the first volume order for 800G transceivers from this customer and expects it to be the beginning of additional orders as the customer scales deployments across its clusters and regions.

The order comes shortly after AOI announced a separate deal for 1.6T transceivers from the same hyperscale customer. The company stated that the 800G order is expected to support GPU cluster buildup as part of the customer’s large-scale infrastructure expansion plans.

AOI’s CEO, Dr. Thompson Lin, said that customers are adopting 800G technology not only for higher bandwidth but also to manage long-term operating costs. According to the company, deploying 800G transceivers helps improve power efficiency and lower the cost per bit, reducing the need for frequent network upgrades.

The company said shipments are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026 and be completed by the middle of the third quarter, following product qualifications.

Stock Price Reaction

$AAOI shares rose about 9% following the announcement.

Kodiak Sciences ($KOD) Reports Positive Phase 3 Results for Eye Disease Drug Zenkuda

Kodiak Sciences ($KOD), a biotechnology company developing treatments for retinal diseases, announced positive results from its second Phase 3 clinical trial of Zenkuda, an experimental drug for diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetic retinopathy is a condition where damaged blood vessels leak fluid into the retina, potentially leading to vision loss. According to the company, approximately 9.7 million people in the United States have the condition.

In the study, called GLOW2, about 63% of patients treated with Zenkuda showed meaningful improvement in their disease compared to just 3% of patients who received a placebo. The company said the drug also reduced the risk of developing serious vision-threatening complications by 85%.

According to the company, no cases of inflammation inside the eye were observed during the trial, a safety concern that has affected some competing drugs in development. Patients in the study received injections just five times over roughly 11 months, with all patients moving to a six-month dosing schedule by the end of the study.

The GLOW2 results confirm the findings from an earlier study called GLOW1, which also showed positive outcomes. The company said it now plans to accelerate its application to the FDA for approval of Zenkuda. Kodiak is also running additional late-stage studies for Zenkuda and two other drug candidates, with several data readouts expected later in 2026.

Stock Price Reaction

$KOD shares rose about 70% following the announcement.

Arm Holdings ($ARM) Launches First In-House Chip for AI Data Centers

Arm Holdings ($ARM), a semiconductor company that designs processor technology used in devices worldwide, announced the launch of its first in-house chip, called the AGI CPU, designed specifically for artificial intelligence data centers.

The move marks a major shift for the company, which for more than 35 years has licensed its chip designs to other manufacturers rather than producing its own silicon. According to the company, the AGI CPU is built to handle a growing class of AI workloads driven by so-called agentic AI, where software programs operate continuously on behalf of users.

The company said the new chip features up to 136 processing cores and delivers more than two times the performance per rack compared with traditional x86 processors, while using less power. According to the company, this efficiency advantage could translate into billions of dollars in savings for data center operators.

Meta is the lead partner and co-developer of the chip, and the two companies have committed to collaborating across multiple generations. The company said additional customers include OpenAI, Cloudflare, SAP, and Cerebras, among others. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will produce the chips.

Arm’s CEO Rene Haas stated that the company expects the AGI CPU to generate approximately $15 billion in annual revenue by 2031. Combined with growth in its existing licensing business, the company is targeting total annual revenue of $25 billion and earnings per share of more than $9 by that time. For context, Arm generated about $4 billion in total revenue in its most recent fiscal year.

Stock Price Reaction

$ARM shares jumped about 16% following the announcement.

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