Corning lands $6 billion Meta deal for AI data centers, stock surges to near-record highs

Corning Secures Historic $6 Billion Deal With Meta for AI Data Centers

Meta has committed to paying Corning up to $6 billion through 2030 for fiber-optic cables in its AI data centers, marking one of the most significant supply agreements in the ongoing AI boom 1

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. The announcement sent Corning stock surging 16% to near-record levels around $111, approaching its dot-com bubble peak from 2000 3

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. The 175-year-old glassmaker has emerged as an unexpected winner in the AI infrastructure buildout, with shares climbing more than 75% over the past year as demand for advanced optical fiber accelerates 1

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Corning CEO Wendell Weeks revealed the deal details from a cable factory in Hickory, North Carolina, where the company is undertaking a major manufacturing expansion to meet soaring demand from hyperscalers including Nvidia, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft 1

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. "Almost every phone call I get from my customers is trying to see, how do we get them more?" Weeks said, adding that hyperscalers will likely become Corning's biggest customers next year 1

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Manufacturing Expansion Creates World's Largest Fiber Plant

Under the $6 billion deal, Corning will supply Meta with its latest optical fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions designed to meet the density and scale requirements of modern AI data centers 4

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. The partnership supports Meta's ambitious plan to build 30 data centers, including 26 facilities in the U.S., as part of a $60 billion commitment to data center infrastructure through 2028 1

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To accommodate the agreement, Corning is expanding its optical cable manufacturing facility in Hickory, North Carolina, where Meta will serve as the anchor customer 4

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. When complete, the facility will be the largest fiber-optic cable plant in the world 1

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. The company also plans to add a new optical cable manufacturing facility in the same location 4

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. This expansion is expected to support employment growth in North Carolina of approximately 15% to 20%, sustaining a skilled workforce of more than 5,000 employees across the state 4

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Fiber-Optic Cables Enable AI Supercomputing at Scale

The deal highlights the critical role of fiber-optic technology in powering AI infrastructure. Instead of sending information as electrical signals through copper wire, fiber uses strands of ultra-pure glass—each one thinner than a human hair—to carry data as pulses of light at nearly the speed of light 2

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. In AI data centers, fiber-optic cable links tens of thousands of GPUs, allowing them to function as a single supercomputer cluster 2

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Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, told Fortune the Meta deal is "big" for Corning, likely doubling its annual revenue from that one deal alone from under a half-billion to closer to a billion per year once the plant is fully ramped up 2

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. As AI inference booms, "the amount of fiber per data center is going to explode," Boloor explained, noting that "data does not teleport between racks—the data flows through fiber" 2

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From Dot-Com Bubble Survivor to AI Boom Winner

Corning's current success comes after the company learned hard lessons from the tech bubble of the early 2000s. Fiber brought Corning huge success in the dot-com boom, with the stock multiplying by about eightfold from the beginning of 1997 through its peak in September 2000, before losing over 90% of its value over a roughly two-year market collapse 1

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. The company's valuation reached nearly $100 billion at the height of the internet bubble in 2000, only to plummet from $100 to $1 per share, forcing Corning to lay off half its employees 2

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"What we learned then was that it wasn't enough to do great innovations," Weeks said 1

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. This time around, Weeks expressed confidence that the company is better positioned, noting that fiber-optic demand has grown at about 7% annually on average and that Corning's diversified business includes "some more stable, high cash flow businesses in our mix" 1

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. "We're built to withstand bad weather," Weeks added 1

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Strong Financial Performance and More Deals Expected

Corning's optical communications enterprise revenue leaped 58% year over year in the third quarter, fueled by strong interest in its new generative AI products 5

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. The company has beat earnings estimates in six consecutive quarters and is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings, with analysts estimating earnings per share of 70 cents alongside revenue of $4.35 billion 4

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Industry analysts expect the Meta deal won't be the last major agreement for Corning. "I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft do a similar Corning deal, because a lot of these data center investors are moving past plant construction and they really fear that shortages are going to show up once they get to that next stage," Boloor said 2

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. Of the six analysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha, five have issued "buy" ratings compared to one "hold," though the stock has already surpassed their mean target around $100 with its recent gains 3

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Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, emphasized the strategic importance of domestic supply chains in the AI race. "We want to have a domestic supply chain that's available to support that," Kaplan said, adding that "if we as a country don't make the right policy choices and the right investments, that's a real risk" in competing with China 1

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. The collaboration between Meta and Corning demonstrates how the AI boom is reshaping America's industrial landscape, turning a 175-year-old company once known for Pyrex cookware and iPhone glass into a critical supplier for next-generation technology 2

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