SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 6, 2026, 06:05 (PDT)
- Nvidia and Corning announced a multiyear partnership to add three U.S. optical manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas.
- Corning plans to lift U.S. optical connectivity capacity tenfold and fiber output by more than 50% as AI data centers demand faster data links.
- A Corning filing showed Nvidia bought $500 million of warrants, giving it rights tied to Corning shares.
Nvidia and Corning will build three advanced optical manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas, tying the chipmaker more deeply to the U.S. supply chain behind artificial intelligence data centers. Corning said the expansion would create more than 3,000 jobs and lift its U.S. optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10 times.
The move matters now because the AI buildout is moving beyond processors. Large AI data centers, sometimes called “AI factories,” need not only Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, but also fiber, connectors and photonics — light-based gear that moves data quickly between machines.
Corning said the new capacity will supply optical connectivity used by hyperscale data centers deploying Nvidia-accelerated computing. Modern AI workloads require thousands of GPUs, the companies said, driving demand for high-performance optical fiber and related components.
Nvidia is also putting capital behind the deal. A Corning regulatory filing showed the company sold Nvidia a warrant to buy up to 15 million common shares at $180 a share and a pre-funded warrant for up to 3 million shares at $0.0001 a share, for an aggregate purchase price of $500 million. A warrant is a right to buy shares later at a set price.
The filing gives the partnership a harder financial edge than a standard supply agreement. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia’s rights are part of a broader arrangement to expand AI infrastructure, with Corning ramping manufacturing capacity to supply fiber used by data centers that deploy Nvidia chips.
Corning shares jumped in premarket trading. Dow Jones reported through MarketScreener that Corning rose almost 18% to $190.69 before the U.S. open, while Nvidia gained 2% to $200.74; MarketScreener’s quote page also showed Corning at $190.94 in premarket trading at about 9:05 a.m. EDT.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and chief executive, called AI “the largest infrastructure buildout of our time,” while Corning Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks said the deal showed AI was “not just a technology story” but a manufacturing one. Stock Titan
The competitive backdrop is Big Tech’s rush to secure the pipes behind AI. Meta agreed in January to pay Corning up to $6 billion over several years for fiber-optic cables for AI data centers, while Reuters reported that demand from Meta, Microsoft and Google had helped drive Corning’s stock sharply higher in 2025.
Corning was already seeing the AI lift before the Nvidia deal. In its first-quarter 2026 results, the company reported revenue of $4.35 billion, up 18% from a year earlier, while its Optical Communications sales rose 36%, helped by demand for generative AI products.
But the plan carries execution risk. Corning and Nvidia warned that forward-looking statements could be hit by trade tensions, supply-chain disruption, equipment and facility issues, customer demand shifts and the ability to pace capital spending with expected AI infrastructure demand.
For Nvidia, the deal extends its reach from chips into the physical links that let AI systems run at scale. For Corning, it makes the 175-year-old glass and materials company a more visible supplier in the AI infrastructure race — and puts fresh pressure on it to deliver factories, capacity and jobs fast enough to match the demand investors now expect.
