First Solar is America's largest solar-panel maker and the only one at scale that doesn't use crystalline silicon — it makes its own cadmium-telluride (CdTe) thin-film modules end-to-end. It sells those panels to the developers who build utility-scale solar farms, and rides a wave of US-made-clean-energy incentives (IRA Section 45X credits) that turn its ~24 GW of domestic factories into a cash engine.
In simple terms
First Solar sits in the middle of the solar chain. It buys tellurium and glass, turns them into its own cadmium-telluride panels in its factories, and sells those panels to the developers who build big solar farms — which then feed power to the grid, utilities and, increasingly, AI data centres.