AdAstra: The EU partner internally tested the product, validated the Alphas, and requested minor changes which is now going into the Beta.

In my view, “internally” means POET, since the customer is external. They (POET) tested and validated the alphas internally against the customer’s specification, saw where and how minor improvements had to be done in order to meet all of the customer’s requirements for beta resp. production. Then (or already before that) they shipped the alphas off to the customer, immediately incorporated the necessary improvements in the beta designs and sent the latter to the mask shop for production.

This way, they fast-tracked the process. They didn’t have to wait for the customer’s validation results, because they found them out themselves and knew already what the customer would say. They might even have the betas ready before the customer completes testing the alphas. Oh, wait, no, we have a global chip supply crisis, so forget my last sentence.