NVIDIA, a chipmaker at the epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom, is partnering with glass materials giant Corning to build three advanced manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas. All three facilities will focus on developing optical communication technologies exclusively for the world’s highest-valued semiconductor company.
In a joint press release issued Wednesday local time, the two companies stated that the new facilities will create at least 3,000 jobs, expand Corning’s optical communication manufacturing capacity in the United States by 10 times, and boost its domestic optical fiber production capacity by more than 50%.
Furthermore, Corning has entered into a securities purchase agreement with NVIDIA as a key part of their long-term strategic partnership. Corning issued and sold warrants worth a total of $500 million to NVIDIA. Under the terms of the deal, NVIDIA received traditional warrants to purchase up to 15 million shares of Corning common stock at an exercise price of $180.00 per share, along with pre-funded warrants to purchase up to 3 million common shares at an exercise price of $0.0001 per share.
Specific financial terms were not disclosed by either party. Following the announcement, Corning’s share price surged 14%, while NVIDIA’s stock rose nearly 3%.
Since OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, global investment enthusiasm for new processors and systems powering cutting-edge AI models and computing workloads has reached unprecedented heights, driving a sharp market value surge for both infrastructure-focused enterprises. Although the two firms have not disclosed specific R&D directions, NVIDIA is highly likely planning to replace traditional copper cables with Corning’s optical glass fiber in its AI rack-scale systems — an integration known as Co-packaged Optics (CPO).
At NVIDIA’s 2025 GTC Global AI Technology Conference, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated directly that Co-packaged Optics is an indispensable core technology for the expansion and development of the AI industry.
“NVIDIA’s initiative is of far-reaching significance, not only for the future development of artificial intelligence but also for strengthening advanced manufacturing employment across the United States,” said Wendell Weeks, CEO of Corning, in the press release.
As of Tuesday’s close, the 175-year-old legacy enterprise has seen its stock surge more than 250% over the past year, driven by its rapid transformation into new economy sectors. In January, metaverse giant Meta announced plans to invest up to $6 billion as a key strategic partner to support Corning’s expansion of its optical cable plant in Hickory, North Carolina. The expansion is expected to generate approximately 1,000 new jobs.
NVIDIA has long solidified its leading position in the AI market. Its GPUs serve as the core hardware for large language model development and support massive data center expansions by tech leaders including Google and Meta. Over the past five years, NVIDIA’s share price has climbed roughly 14 times, though its upward momentum has recently moderated. Investors have begun diversifying into AI infrastructure stocks, increasing holdings in chipmakers such as Intel, memory giant Micron, and materials leader Corning.
Analysts have long anticipated NVIDIA’s large-scale deployment of Co-packaged Optics, a technology poised to drastically boost data transmission speeds and reduce energy consumption for AI computing workloads.
Corning is best known for supplying display glass for all Apple iPhone models, while optical communications remains its largest and fastest-growing core business segment. Since inventing long-distance communication optical fiber in 1970, Corning has laid millions of miles of fiber optic cables for AI data centers of major technology firms to support inter-rack data transmission.
Through its partnership with NVIDIA, Corning is set to extend glass fiber applications into intra-chip interconnections, eventually replacing up to 5,000 traditional copper cables built into NVIDIA rack-scale systems such as Vera Rubin.
Optical fiber consists of thin, flexible glass strands that transmit data in the form of photons, delivering faster speeds and lower power consumption compared with conventional copper wiring.
“Transmitting data via photons consumes 5 to 20 times less energy than electronic transmission,” Weeks noted in a CNBC interview this January.
Vlad Galabov, Enterprise Infrastructure Analyst at market research firm Omdia, pointed out: “Optical signal conversion modules are now placed directly adjacent to chips, limiting data transmission distances to only a few millimeters. This drastically cuts energy waste compared with traditional cross-board transmission.”
Galabov added, “NVIDIA is driving the entire industry ecosystem to accelerate technological innovation.”
Optical fiber also features far lower signal loss than copper cables, improving communication stability, accelerating transmission rates, and shortening interconnection distances among hundreds of thousands of GPUs within data centers.
“Artificial intelligence is driving the largest infrastructure buildout of our era and presents a once-in-a-century opportunity to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and supply chains,” said Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, in the press release.
“Together with Corning, we will shape the future of the computing industry through advanced optical technologies, strengthen the foundation of AI infrastructure, enable intelligent data to flow at the speed of light, and carry forward the fine tradition of American manufacturing.”
NVIDIA launched two network switches adopting similar CPO technologies back in 2025, designed for deployment directly beside main AI chips. Its rivals Broadcom and Marvell have rolled out comparable products, while Intel is also developing its own Co-packaged Optics solutions.
In March this year, NVIDIA invested $4 billion in two enterprises, Coherent and Lumentum. Both companies specialize in researching and manufacturing lasers and optoelectronic conversion components that enable mutual conversion between optical and electrical signals, with data subsequently transmitted through Corning’s fiber optic cables.
During a dedicated factory tour in January, Weeks revealed that he is collaborating with major chip firms to research core glass technologies and explore future applications of glass materials in semiconductor packaging.
“As energy consumption concerns grow increasingly prominent, optical fiber will inevitably be placed closer and closer to computing chips,” Weeks explained. “As server GPU counts expand to hundreds of units, inter-device connection distances grow longer — and with greater distances, the cost and energy efficiency advantages of optical fiber become even more pronounced.”
Corning will host an Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday and ring the closing bell the following day to celebrate the company’s 175th anniversary.
(Reprinted from https://news.eccn.com/）