MaxLinear, Inc.’s MXL transformation into an infrastructure-focused company is being driven by strong growth in its data center optical business and several high-value products that remain early in their market ramp-up. The Infrastructure segment became the largest revenue category in first-quarter 2026, with sales rising 136% year over year, led by production ramp-up in optical data center platforms.
Management sees more growth ahead as hyperscale customers continue building out AI-focused architectures. Strong customer orders and growing visibility of the program ramp-up led the company to increase its 2026 optical data center revenue expectations to the $150-$170 million range.
MaxLinear also expects data center revenues to move higher from the second quarter, with additional upsides as run rates expand into 2027. The majority of this momentum is being driven by the Keystone PAM4 DSP family, which is ramping up at several major data centers in the United States and Asia for 400-gig and 800-gig deployments for scale-up and scale-out applications.
With Keystone validating the company’s ability to execute at scale, customer engagement around the Rushmore family of PAM4 TIAs and 200 gigabit per lane DSPs is gaining traction faster than expected. Production ramp-up is anticipated to begin in late 2026, with revenue growth continuing through 2027.
MaxLinear is also broadening its presence within hyperscale data centers beyond PAM4-based optical and electrical interconnects. Within Infrastructure, the Panther family of hardware storage accelerators SoCs continues to see strong design wins and success across Tier-1 network appliance and cloud service providers. Based on current engagement, the company expects storage accelerator revenues to at least double in 2026 from the 2025 levels. MaxLinear’s Sierra single-chip radio SoCs are now deployed with multiple North American operators, with expanding opportunities as 5G networks continue to evolve.
Updates From MXL Peers
Qualcomm Technologies QCOM recently launched Snapdragon Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (“START”), a program designed to help brands bring their own personal AI devices to market faster and with greater flexibility, starting with smart glasses. Announced at the Augmented World Expo, Snapdragon START combines modules with an AI-agnostic full software stack and a network of manufacturing partners to let brands, enterprise-focused organizations and emerging innovators focus on design and experience.
Global eyewear company, Inspecs, is the first to exclusively collaborate with Qualcomm under the Snapdragon START program.
Qorvo QRVO has introduced QPF5012, an X-band radar front-end solution that allows defense system designers to achieve higher performance without increasing size, weight or prime power. Designed for modern phased array and multifunction sensors, the solution combines transmit power, efficiency and receive sensitivity in a single compact module, addressing key challenges in next-generation radar design.
The Zacks Rundown for MXL Stock
Over the past year, MaxLinear shares have surged 609.2% compared with the industry’s 85.9% growth.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
In terms of valuation, MXL trades at a forward, three-year Price/Sales (P/S) of 12.11X compared with its 2.80X median and the industry average of 10.88X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Take a look at how estimates for MaxLinear’s 2026 and 2027 earnings are shaping up.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
MaxLinear currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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