NVIDIA invests $500 million in Corning partnership to build three optical manufacturing plants for AI data center infrastructure

NVIDIA and Corning agreed to a multi-billion-dollar partnership to expand U.S. optical connectivity manufacturing. The deal includes three new advanced manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas, intended to increase Corning's domestic optical capacity tenfold, with more than 3,000 jobs expected to be created.

The partnership aims to replace copper cabling in AI data center systems with Corning's optical fiber. This targets a key bottleneck: as AI models and data center clusters become larger, data movement inside and between servers becomes critical to performance.

NVIDIA is investing US$500 million via rights and warrants for Corning shares as part of the multi-year agreement. This financial tie aligns NVIDIA's exposure with execution at a critical supplier for optical transceivers and fiber components.