Amphenol orders hit $10.7 billion as AI demand runs hot

Amphenol makes the unglamorous plumbing of the AI boom — the connectors, cables, and sensors that tie processors together. As CEO Adam Norwitt puts it, interconnect is the central nervous system of AI, and without it a $3 million server rack is worth very little. That position has quietly become a growth engine: the company's IT datacom business is roughly four times its size two years ago.

The second-quarter report backs that up. Sales of $8.8 billion rose 55% year over year, organic growth was 30%, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.35 jumped 67%. The standout figure is orders of $10.7 billion, which exceeded what Amphenol shipped, leaving a book-to-bill ratio of 1.23. Norwitt, who told a recent Citi conference that he doesn't do interviews and that the company announces none of its customer commitments, including long-term non-cancelable orders, has let the numbers speak instead.

What makes the setup interesting is the contrast with Amphenol's AI-adjacent peers. Corning, Flex, and Littelfuse have all run harder this year, but over the past quarter Amphenol gained 4.9% while Flex fell 18% and Corning dropped 19.4%. Tech giants are still planning and building massive AI data centers, but there is public pushback ahead of the midterm elections. Whether Amphenol's steady profile holds up may depend on whether that buildout continues at its current pace, and on whether the wobblier names around it stabilize.