Corning CEO Wendell Weeks at Corning’s cable manufacturing unit 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 most recent megadeal that includes two corporations on the middle of the bogus 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 permit quick connections between information facilities and the racks and chips they home.
Shares of Corning popped 4% on Monday. Amazon inventory was little modified.
“Amazon’s information facilities energy the companies hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies depend on every single day,” the businesses stated in a press launch. “Corning’s fiber optics are a crucial piece of that infrastructure, and collectively, these investments assist gasoline the U.S. financial engine.”
The deal additionally expands a Corning coaching program for fiber optic technicians in North Carolina. Amazon Internet Companies CEO Matt Garman stated within the press launch that the corporate’s investments within the state have created over 26,000 jobs. Final 12 months, Amazon dedicated to spend $10 billion on new information facilities in North Carolina.
Recent demand from AI is reinvigorating the 175-year-old Corning as hyperscalers and AI labs scramble to fulfill their exploding wants for computing energy. Corning’s shares have greater than doubled to this point this 12 months and are up virtually sixfold for the reason that 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 hundreds of thousands of miles of cables to attach racks collectively in AI information facilities from all the foremost gamers.
The Trump administration has referred to as on Massive Tech to onshore as many steps within the AI provide chain as doable, and Corning helps reply that want. Nearly all of Corning’s enterprise occurs abroad, which CEO Wendell Weeks instructed CNBC earlier this 12 months is not altering. However he additionally stated “subsequent 12 months the hyperscalers will likely be our largest prospects.”
“This settlement with Amazon represents a big milestone for Corning and for American manufacturing,” Weeks stated in Monday’s press launch, including it can “paved the way towards constructing a resilient U.S. manufacturing base.”
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