Even 175-year-old Companies Can Join The AI Boom

Corning, the 175-year-old glassmaker, is pivoting hard into AI infrastructure through a major partnership with Nvidia. The companies announced plans to open three advanced manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas for optical connectivity tech, expected to create over 3,000 jobs. Nvidia can invest up to $2.7 billion in Corning, including warrants for up to 15 million shares at $180 each and a pre-funded warrant for 3 million shares worth $500 million. This builds on Corning's earlier $6 billion deal with Meta for optical cable production in Hickory, NC, adding 1,000 jobs there. Corning's stock has surged over 250% in the past year amid this shift.

The deal targets co-packaged optics, integrating Corning's glass fiber directly with Nvidia chips to replace copper cables in AI rack-scale systems like Vera Rubin. Fiber optics transmit data as photons, using 5-20 times less power than copper's electrons, with less signal loss over short distances like millimeters between chips. This reduces energy waste, enables flatter networks, and supports massive GPU clusters in data centers. Analysts see it as Nvidia's long-awaited scale-up in optics, its fastest-growing business. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called it foundational for AI at speeds of light, while Corning CEO Wendell Weeks highlighted its boost to U.S. manufacturing.