Kopin (NASDAQ: KOPN) on Drones, AI Interconnects, Micro Displays, Defense Tech and 2026 Catalysts

I'm doing very well. Thanks for having us.

Sure. So, Kopin's a 40-year-old company based in Massachusetts. I took over the company about three years ago, coming on four years ago. Now, mainly focused on building micro displays, ASICs, and a number of other technologies. But the core of our company is we are semiconductor developers that happen to have a fantastic business in the United States Department of Defense and also now in Europe, mainly focused on application specific solutions in defense. But we're now starting to move into AI infrastructure with our microLED technology, but also has a defense flare within the Department of War, four-letter agencies, three-letter agencies that require a US-based manufacturer of AI chipsets as opposed to those that could be built in Taiwan or China as an example. So, the company is moving into its second phase of this strategy that I put in place when I joined and we're being very successful with it. And we're really excited about being able to discuss it tonight with you and as well as at the conference.

Yeah. So, I'm going to answer that question in three ways with three different pillars. Okay. First things first, we have a tremendous franchise in US Department of War capabilities. As an example, we're in thermal weapon sights today. And we're shipping, you know, 15 to 20,000 units of weapon sights every year. We're also in head-mounted display systems like aircraft helmets and fast-moving jets that are classified as an example, as well as rotary wing aircraft. So, we have this longevity of really difficult problems to solve in defense. Now we have our European business coming up with our partners at Theon. I'm going there later this week to Greece to work on new technologies with them. So our European and NATO business is starting to grow in defense. So we have this tremendous wealth of capability. We do it very well. We're very unique in the market that we can add micro displays, optics as well as drive electronics in some sort of housing as an application specific solution. So that's number one. We do that today. Number two, we have tremendous capability here in the United States that is very different than any other micro display company in the world. We build four different types of micro displays currently. We invented the fifth kind which is a bi-directional micro display called Neural Display and I'll come back to that in a second. And the US Department of War under what's called an IBAS award, Industrial Based Analysis and Sustainment Act, invested $15.4 million in Kopin to build a color microLED production line here in the United States in this building. We'll be the only United States company that I'm aware of that has a fully operational microLED production line by the end of this year. And Robert, that's to support programs like Soldier Borne Mission Command, which would be a $350 million to $500 million contract to Kopin if and when we are inserted into that program with the color microLED that's being developed with and for the army. And then secondly, that same production line will be able to build our third pillar here, which is an AI infrastructure microLED interconnect chip. Now remember what I said earlier, we have microLEDs in production today. That is very unique. Most companies that are entering the market have never built a micro display ever, let alone have a microLED that's flying in an aircraft today. Moreover, we invented the bi-directional micro display. And this very not known company called Nvidia came online yesterday. Jensen came out and said this company, Marvell, will be the next trillion dollar company and I believe that to be true but it's all based on AI interconnects and an AI interconnect is the issue right now gating AI infrastructure advancement and gating more bandwidth which Nvidia can supply the market and the reason why interconnects are gating that adoption rate is bandwidth, power consumption, and consumability and durability. So microLEDs, last night when Marvell announced their new 100 terabit per second switch, are now going to see the light of day. And this was the first validation in a real product where a microLED will be a transmitter and a receiver. And that bodes very well for Kopin since we'll have an AI interconnect chip demonstrable by the end of this year with our partner Fabric AI.

Yeah, it was an interesting opportunity for myself and my family. I had exited a company called Ultra Electronics which sold to a PE firm in Boston I think for 2.5 billion. So Ultra was a cryptography company. I ran their NSA Type 1 cryptography teams here in the United States as well as their UK high-grade and NATO cryptography teams in the UK actually. So I exited that business and this opportunity became available but prior to joining Ultra I worked at a company called Analog Devices here in Massachusetts building MEMS devices and I had various roles including some corporate M&A work so it fit with my background, half semiconductor, half defense. And now when you look at this new AI chipset that we're coming out with and it is a family of chips, it's not one chip, it's a family of chips, my background in cryptography might be interesting to the government when we start thinking about transmitting data over the air or over a waveguide or over fiber optics. So we're in a very unique position at Kopin and I took this position to create that company that I want which is a very dynamic focused defense first company, second AI infrastructure and third consumer. That is a rocket ship literally for a semiconductor company. And that's what we're building here.

Great question. So, drones, drones, drones. I am staggeringly surprised by the speed that the Pentagon is moving when it comes to supplying drones to the United States and our allies. And Kopin announced our first person viewer this year called Sentinel FPV. And what Sentinel is is basically an off the visor, off the helmet swing down full HD first-person viewer that's built in the United States. So many of the drone dominance winners are using either Fat Sharks from great companies like ImmersionRC. But to get fully compliant with the FCC and other agencies, you need a US-based manufactured first-person viewer to supply the Pentagon. And if I'll remind investors, ImmersionRC and Unusual Machines are investors in Kopin. And I think they saw this coming before everyone else did, that US-based displays as well as optics and headsets are going to be required for the drone dominance competition. And we've just announced one major winner in the drone dominance competition selected Kopin for our first person viewer, but my guess is that you're going to see many more. We are tracking about five other companies that want to place orders on our first-person viewer for this year and that will have significant volumes for next year. So that's one. Two, Soldier Borne Mission Command, major program. Three big bidders, Anduril, Palantir, Rivet, and Elbit. We are partnered with several of them, not all of them. Not only for their prototypes, which will likely be OLED based to begin with, but we'll get an insertion in the program with our microLED, color microLED, when it's ready. So that's a major program for us. And then thirdly, the United States government needs an AI transceiver chip built in the United States for their servers. And by the way, Robert, the United States government, Department of War, is the second largest consumer of AI GPUs. Second largest, only behind the big hyperscalers. That is a 23 billion with a B market for Kopin that we're the only ones in that lane. So for us, there's some tremendous growth drivers in front of this company and we're really excited that we have the right technology, the production lines here in the United States, and the pedigree and providence to do it better than anybody else in the world.

Definitely hit our website, kopin.com. Follow me on Twitter or X and certainly our LinkedIn pages are always updated, but look for more press releases from us around the drone dominance competition. Certainly on the AI front with our friends at Fabric AI and certainly our strategic investors, the international ones and Unusual Machines.

Yes, sir. See you, sir.