Nvidia, Corning partner on three new optical factories NC, Texas
Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of the artificial intelligence boom, partners with glass manufacturer Corning For three new advanced manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas dedicated entirely to optical technologies for the world’s most valuable semiconductor company.
The factories will create at least 3,000 jobs and increase Corning’s U.S. optical manufacturing capacity by 10 times, the companies said in a joint press release Wednesday.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Corning shares gained 15% on this news. Nvidia shares gained nearly 3%.
The multi-year deal brings together two infrastructure players whose fortunes have soared since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, which has led to a boom in investments in new processors and systems to power cutting-edge AI models and workloads. While neither company has detailed what is being developed, Nvidia is likely preparing to replace copper with Corning’s optical glass fibers in its AI rack-scale systems, an integration known as co-packaged optics.
At Nvidia’s GTC conference in 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that co-packaged optics are essential for AI fabrication.
“What Nvidia is doing is extraordinary not only for the future of AI, but also for America’s advanced manufacturing workforce,” Corning CEO Wendell Weeks said in a press release.
Corning’s shares rose more than 250% last year as of Tuesday’s close, driven by the 175-year-old company’s rapid transition to the new economy. In January, Meta announced it would spend up to $6 billion as a flagship customer to help Corning build its optical cable facility in Hickory, North Carolina, which is expected to create about 1,000 jobs.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang speaks next to the NVIDIA Vera Rubin system at the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference on March 16, 2026 in San Jose, California.
Fred Greaves | Reuters
Nvidia solidified its position in the AI market much earlier, as graphics processing units played a key role in developing large language models and giving tech giants like Alphabet and Meta the ability to massively expand their data centers. Nvidia’s stock price has risen roughly 14x over the past five years, but the rally has slowed recently as investors spread their bets across a broader swath of AI infrastructure companies backing chip maker Intel and memory provider Micron, as well as Corning.
Analysts have long awaited Nvidia’s large-scale co-packaged optical deployment as the technology promises to greatly increase data transfer speed and reduce energy needs for AI workloads.
Corning is known for making all the display glass for Apple’s iPhone, but optical communications remains its largest and fastest-growing business. Since Corning invented optical fiber for long-distance communications in 1970, it has provided millions of miles of cable to connect racks in AI data centers of all the major players.
Replacing copper
By partnering with Nvidia, Corning could introduce glass fiber between chips and eventually replace 5,000 copper wires in rack-scale systems. Vera Rubin.
Fiber optic cables are small, bendable glass ribbons that allow data to pass as photons at much higher speeds and with less energy than traditional copper wires use.
“Moving photons provide five to 20 times lower power usage than moving electrons,” Weeks told CNBC in an interview in January.
“You bring the light conversion process right next to the computer chip,” said Vlad Galabov, head of corporate infrastructure at research firm Omdia. “There is less power wasted because now you are traveling a few millimeters, which requires much less energy than moving across the circuit board.”
Galabov added that “Nvidia is pushing the entire ecosystem to innovate faster.”
Optical fiber also allows for less signal loss than copper, speeding up reliable communications and shortening the distance required between hundreds of thousands of GPUs in a data center.
“AI is powering the greatest infrastructure build of our time and is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize American manufacturing and supply chains,” Nvidia’s Huang said in the press release. he said. “
“Together with Corning, we are inventing the future of computing with advanced optical technologies, advancing the proud Made in America tradition while laying the foundation for an AI infrastructure where intelligence moves at the speed of light.”
Nvidia launched two network switches using similar technologies in 2025, placing them right next to the primary AI chips. While rivals Broadcom and Marvell are launching similar products, Intel is also developing co-packaged optical solutions.
In March, Nvidia invested $4 billion in two companies — Coherent and Lumentum — that develop lasers and components that help convert data between light and electrical signals, which are then transported through Corning’s fiber optic cables.
Weeks told CNBC during an exclusive factory tour in January that he’s working with “all the different chips on the glass core and how glass will be a part of semiconductor packaging in the future.”
“As power becomes a bigger issue, fiber inevitably moves closer and closer to computing,” Weeks said. He added that as the number of GPUs in a server increases to hundreds, distances will increase, and when these distances increase, fiber optics will become much more economical and much more power efficient.
Corning is hosting an investor day at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, a day before it celebrates its 175th anniversary by ringing the closing bell.
WRISTWATCH: How did 175-year-old glass company Corning win the $6 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure deal with Meta?
