Nvidia, Corning partnership to expand U.S. AI data center manufacturing

Nvidia and Corning moved to turn the AI boom into hard infrastructure, announcing a multiyear partnership that will expand U.S. production of optical connectivity hardware for data centers. Corning said it will build three new advanced manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas devoted to optical technologies for Nvidia, a plan the companies say will create more than 3,000 jobs and lift Corning’s U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10 times. Corning also said its U.S. fiber production capacity will rise by more than 50%, a sign that the bottlenecks facing AI are shifting from chips alone to the cables and glass that move data inside the machine.

The deal also gives Nvidia the option to invest up to $3.2 billion in Corning through warrants and a pre-funded warrant structure. The financing underscores how closely AI hardware, networking and manufacturing are now tied together, with Nvidia using capital to help secure supply for the next generation of compute systems. Investors immediately read the announcement as a bet on the buildout itself: Corning shares climbed 12% and Nvidia gained almost 6% after the news.

That reaction reflects a larger shift in the AI supply chain. As cloud providers and chipmakers push denser systems, optical interconnects are becoming central to the architecture of AI factories, especially where copper no longer moves data fast enough or efficiently enough. Nvidia laid out that strategy publicly on March 18, 2025, when it introduced Spectrum-X Photonics and Quantum-X Photonics, describing networking switches designed to connect millions of GPUs while cutting energy use and improving resilience. Corning was listed among the ecosystem partners behind that roadmap.

The Corning deal also extends a broader manufacturing push that has already reached North Carolina. On January 27, 2026, Corning and Meta Platforms announced a multiyear agreement worth up to $6 billion to accelerate U.S. data center buildout, with Corning expanding production in Hickory, North Carolina. Corning said that agreement would support a 15% to 20% increase in employment in the state and sustain more than 5,000 workers there. The new Nvidia arrangement widens that footprint and adds Texas to the map.

Corning has spent decades building the technical base for this moment. The company says its scientists developed the world’s first low-loss optical fiber in 1970, a breakthrough that helped create modern fiber-optic communications. Wendell P. Weeks said the Nvidia partnership shows that AI is “not just a technology story but a manufacturing story happening in the United States,” while Jensen Huang called AI “the largest infrastructure buildout of our time” and “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate American manufacturing and supply chains.”