(Yicai) Aug. 28 -- Linktel Technologies, a Chinese supplier of optical communication modules, unveiled a plan to invest USD150 million to expand its production capacity in Malaysia, aiming to strengthen supply assurance for key overseas clients and mitigate potential adverse impacts from shifting international trade conditions and supply chain volatility, while also reporting that its profit tumbled in the first half of the year.

Linktel Tech will lease plant premises in Penang to build a production line for 800-gigabit and 1.6-terabit high‑speed optical modules, as well as buy land within the Bandar Cassia Tech Park in the same state for a comprehensive industrial park, the Wuhan‑based company announced late yesterday. Construction is scheduled to last 27 months.

The industrial park will leave ample room for future new products, capacity expansion, and supply chain extension for the Malaysian factory, Linktel Tech pointed out.

“The investment will boost Linktel Tech’s manufacturing capacity for next‑gen optical modules in Malaysia, better meeting growing demand from overseas artificial intelligence data centers, cloud service providers, and telecom equipment vendors, fostering a business framework featuring ‘domestic research and development, overseas manufacturing, and global sales’,” the company pointed out.

Optical modules are core communication components enabling bidirectional conversion between electrical and optical signals, delivering high‑speed data interconnection for servers and graphics processing unit clusters. 800G optical modules are the mainstream hardware for AI data centers, while 1.6T ones mainly serve ultra‑large AI computing clusters.

Linktel Tech’s Penang facilities include a Phase I plant producing optical modules ranging from 10G to 400G and a Phase II factory that went live last October, focusing on R&D and manufacturing of 800G and 1.6T high‑speed optical modules.

On the same day, Linktel Tech reported its net profit plunged 73 percent to CNY9.4 million (USD1.4 million) in the six months ended June 30 from a year earlier, while its revenue rose 38 percent to CNY696 million (USD102.6 million). Foreign exchange losses from currency swings at its overseas operations, as well as higher capital expenditure from sustained strategic and R&D outlays, were the main drivers behind the sharp year‑on‑year profit drop, it noted.

Linktel Tech counts well-known cloud service operators and AI computing solution providers among its overseas clients. It sold 130,000 units of 400G-and-above high-speed optical modules in overseas markets in the first half, bringing sales revenue of CNY338 million (USD49.8 million), accounting for nearly half of its total income.

Shares of Linktel Tech [SHE: 301205] fell 0.4 percent to CNY328.30 (USD48.85) apiece as of 1.50 p.m. in Shenzhen today. The stock has more than doubled since reaching its lowest point for the year on July 21.

Editor: Martin Kadiev