Corning CEO Wendell Weeks at Corning’s cable manufacturing facility in Hickory, North Carolina, on Jan. 9, 2026.
Magdalena Petrova | CNBC
Amazon is paying Corning billions of {dollars} for optical fiber to energy and join its quickly increasing U.S. information facilities, the newest megadeal that includes two firms on the heart of the synthetic intelligence growth.
The settlement, introduced Monday, will play out over a number of years and create 1,000 jobs at Corning’s North Carolina factories, the businesses stated. Corning’s fiber optic cable and networking options have gotten important components of AI infrastructure as a result of they allow quick connections between information facilities and the racks and chips they home.
Shares of Corning popped 4% Monday. Amazon inventory was little modified.
“Amazon’s information facilities energy the companies thousands and thousands of individuals and companies depend on day by day,” the assertion stated. “Corning’s fiber optics are a important piece of that infrastructure, and collectively, these investments assist gas the U.S. financial engine.”
The deal additionally expands a Corning coaching program for fiber optic technicians in North Carolina. Within the press launch, Amazon Net Providers CEO Matt Garman stated the corporate’s investments within the state have created over 26,000 jobs. Final yr, Amazon dedicated to spend $10 billion on new information facilities in North Carolina.
For Corning, contemporary demand from AI is reinvigorating the 175-year-old enterprise as hyperscalers and AI labs scramble to fulfill their exploding compute wants. Corning’s shares have greater than doubled to date this yr and are up nearly sixfold because the finish of 2023.
In Could, Nvidia dedicated to investing as much as $3.2 billion in Corning as a part of a deal that entails the glass firm constructing three new superior manufacturing crops fully dedicated to the chipmaker. And in January, Meta stated it might spend as much as $6 billion because the flagship buyer serving to Corning construct out its optical cable plant in Hickory, North Carolina, an growth that is anticipated to create round 1,000 jobs.
Corning is well-known for making all of the show glass for Apple‘s iPhone, however optical communications stays its largest and fastest-growing enterprise. Since inventing optical fiber for long-range communication in 1970, Corning has supplied thousands and thousands of miles of cables to attach racks collectively in AI information facilities from all the key gamers.
The Trump administration has known as on Massive Tech to onshore as many steps within the AI provide chain as attainable, and Corning helps reply that want. The vast majority of Corning’s enterprise occurs abroad, which CEO Wendell Weeks informed CNBC earlier this yr is not altering. However he additionally stated “subsequent yr the hyperscalers might be our greatest prospects.”
“This settlement with Amazon represents a major milestone for Corning and for American manufacturing,” Weeks stated in Monday’s press launch, including it’s going to “cleared the path towards constructing a resilient U.S. manufacturing base.”
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