Let’s talk about Amazon, Qualcomm, and optical communications.

After releasing its earnings report, Amazon $AMZN surged directly from $226 to $287, bringing market enthusiasm to a fever pitch. It also recently announced its collaboration with Qualcomm $QCOM on AI chips, which quickly made headlines. Qualcomm also signed a custom chip partnership with AWS covering multiple generations of products, with a clear core focus: AI inference.

What’s even more interesting is that Qualcomm granted Amazon warrants for up to 25 million shares, with an exercise price of $161.26. These warrants aren’t being given away for free— the more Amazon purchases, the more warrants will vest, corresponding to a maximum potential procurement scale of $60 billion.

What does this mean?

Cloud providers are becoming increasingly committed to the path of developing their own or customized ASICs. But to truly build computing capacity at scale, chips alone aren’t enough. That’s why there’s another easily overlooked detail in this agreement: the two companies will jointly develop optical interconnect solutions based on Qualcomm’s SerDes and optical DSP technologies, supporting speeds of up to 1.6T and evolving toward even higher rates.

The next phase of competition in AI computing may have already shifted from “who has the more powerful GPU” to “who can integrate chips, networking, and optical interconnects most effectively.” So the AI theme is no longer limited to GPU companies such as NVIDIA and AMD. From ASICs, HBM, and optical modules to switches and optical interconnects, the entire computing infrastructure supply chain is being reshuffled. There are more and more opportunities, but for ordinary investors, the brokerage account itself is also worth choosing carefully before actually trading.

I recently tried BBAE, and several aspects suited my habits as a U.S. stock investor. The account-opening process is relatively friendly to users in China, supporting remote online account opening with a fully Chinese-language process, without requiring a special trip to an offline branch. The KYC process was also fairly quick.

In terms of trading, it supports U.S. stocks, ETFs, and options, as well as premarket and after-hours trading. Another interesting feature is the ability to participate in pre-IPO subscriptions.

Security is also something I pay close attention to. BBAE’s securities services are provided by Redbridge Securities, which operates within the U.S. regulated brokerage system and is also a SIPC member. If the brokerage were to go bankrupt or face a similar situation, eligible customer accounts would receive up to $500,000 in SIPC protection. Of course, this protection does not cover market losses caused by a decline in the value of the stocks themselves, so that distinction is important.

Finally, if you were already planning to invest in U.S. stocks—especially amid the current AI-driven market, when you may be frequently rebalancing your portfolio—I think trading costs, the convenience of opening an account, and the safety of your funds are all worth considering together. After all, you wouldn’t want trading costs to eat back the returns you spent so much time researching for.