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Morning Edition · Friday, October 9, 2026Published at 1:18 AM EDT · New York
Lumentum sells out of AI optical parts through 2029 as the US suspends Microsoft and Indian IT firms from green-card sponsorship
A supplier backed by Nvidia says its lasers are allocated for years, while Washington accuses large technology employers of abusing the visa system and Microsoft disputes the charge.
Lumentum, an optical components maker backed by Nvidia, has sold out of its artificial-intelligence (AI) server parts until 2029. The company makes advanced devices from indium phosphide, a semiconductor material, that move data at high speed inside data centers and between them. Its chief executive has said shipments are more than 30% below customer demand even though the company runs five indium phosphide wafer plants. A new plant in Greensboro, North Carolina, is expected to start production in early 2028.
The same day, Washington tightened its control over technology labor. Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling suspended Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini from the Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM). Companies use PERM to sponsor foreign workers on H-1B and other visas for permanent residence. Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas. Microsoft replied that 80% of those visas extended or changed the status of existing employees. The suspension came hours before the president honored Microsoft's chief executive with a medal at a summit on US scientific leadership.
India's IT services companies, which already rely less on US visas than they once did, have reacted with little public concern. The measure does affect their US-based staff who hope to become permanent residents, and those employees now have a reason to look at other countries.
Part of a tracked trend
AI Build-Out Limited by Physical and Political Supply
The expansion of AI computing keeps running into limits on scarce components and on state-controlled access to skilled labor, so pricing power shifts to bottleneck suppliers and governments that control those inputs, rather than to the firms that spend the capital.
Veracity: Corroborated
84/100- If true, who benefits
If the abuse charge holds, the administration gains a way to pressure large employers before the midterms and US technology workers gain protection from displacement, while Microsoft, Adobe and the six IT services firms lose a green card sponsorship route and their foreign staff lose a way to permanent residence.
- The nuance
CNN and The Hill confirm the suspension and Vance's figures, but the government has released no finding of fraud against Microsoft. Microsoft says 78% of its petitions in the past 12 months were extensions for existing employees, not the 80% the article reports, and that its layoffs and its H-1B use are unrelated.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
Synthesized from: The Japan Times · The Japan Times (Business)
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