Nvidia, Corning partner on 3 new AI facilities

Nvidia and Corning announced a multiyear partnership establishing three advanced manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas dedicated entirely to optical technologies for AI infrastructure.

According to a joint press release issued on Wednesday by the two companies, the agreement will create not less than 3,000 jobs and boost optical manufacturing in the US by Corning tenfold. 

However, financial details have yet to be disclosed, and the market was swift to react, with Corning’s share prices rising by 14% and those of Nvidia climbing by almost 3%.

The partnership comes as yet another effort towards consolidation of the underlying infrastructure needed for the ongoing AI boom initiated by OpenAI's ChatGPT back in 2022.

Without disclosing any further details, one thing is certain that the collaboration will almost definitely involve co-packaged optics, which Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang emphasised as crucial for the development of AI at the Nvidia GTC 2025 conference.

The plan involves replacing copper wiring in rack-scale AI systems with Corning’s optical glass fibre technology, which transfers information using photons instead of electrons. Optical technology consumes 5 to 20 times less energy compared to copper wiring while offering fast data transfer and low signal loss, crucial attributes as AI data centres expand to contain tens of thousands of GPUs.

Corning shares have soared by more than 250% in the last year amid the century-old glass company’s transition to becoming an indispensable player in AI infrastructure. Corning currently provides optical cables linking data centre racks for leading cloud computing firms and recently clinched a groundbreaking deal with Meta Platforms to construct a $6 billion optical cable factory in Hickory, North Carolina, generating approximately 1,000 jobs.

In March, Nvidia further signalled commitment to optical infrastructure by investing $4 billion in companies Coherent and Lumentum, which develop the lasers and components that convert data between light and electrical signals.