NVIDIA is making a major push to strengthen U.S. manufacturing for AI-era data centers through a new multiyear commercial and technology partnership with Corning. The collaboration is designed to dramatically expand domestic production of advanced optical connectivity solutions—one of the most critical building blocks behind next-generation AI infrastructure.
At the center of the announcement is a big manufacturing ramp-up. Corning plans to boost its U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10x, while also expanding its U.S. fiber production capacity by more than 50%. This expansion will be supported by three new advanced manufacturing facilities planned for North Carolina and Texas, and the initiative is expected to create more than 3,000 new high-paying jobs in the United States.
The goal is to keep up with surging demand from AI “factory” buildouts—massive clusters of computing hardware designed to train and run AI models at scale. As hyperscale data centers deploy NVIDIA-accelerated computing across thousands of GPUs, the need for high-performance optical fiber, connectivity, and photonics skyrockets. These optical technologies are essential for moving enormous amounts of data quickly and efficiently inside modern AI data centers, where speed, bandwidth, and reliability can determine how effectively AI workloads perform.
Corning, known for inventing low-loss optical fiber and for its long history of innovation in glass science and optical physics, is positioning itself to supply the high-volume optical connectivity required as AI infrastructure grows larger and more widespread.
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang described AI as the largest infrastructure buildout of our time and framed the partnership as an opportunity to strengthen American manufacturing and supply chains. He also emphasized that advanced optical technologies will help enable AI infrastructure where data and intelligence move “at the speed of light,” while reinforcing a Made-in-America approach to building key components of the AI future.
Corning chairman, CEO, and president Wendell P. Weeks highlighted the workforce impact, pointing to NVIDIA’s role in accelerating Corning’s domestic manufacturing expansion and supporting the creation of more than 3,000 high-paying American jobs. He also positioned the partnership as evidence that AI isn’t only about software and algorithms—it’s also about manufacturing, engineering, and building the physical technologies that power AI systems, with more of that work happening inside the United States.
With AI adoption rising across industries and data center demand continuing to surge, this NVIDIA and Corning partnership signals a broader shift: the AI boom is driving real-world investment in U.S. production capacity for critical infrastructure components like optical fiber and photonics—technology that helps keep next-generation AI computing running at scale.
