Inside The Oldest AI Startup’s Mission To Become Bubble-Proof

The AI boom runs on Nvidia chips, staggering amounts of electricity and water—and a lot of glass. Corning makes more of it than anyone else.

More precisely, the 175-year-old glass company makes the hair-thin optical fiber that hauls data between servers, buildings and data centers. Demand has become so intense that Corning has recently signed multibillion-dollar agreements with Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Verizon. This week, AT&T announced a $3 billion deal with Corning to upgrade its home internet service. And Apple has committed another $2.5 billion for Corning’s Gorilla Glass, the tough, hard-to-scratch stuff used in iPhones and Apple Watches.

For one of the nation’s OG technology companies, founded in 1851 and responsible for everything from the glass in Thomas Edison’s light bulbs to the cookware known as Pyrex, AI infrastructure is a lively third act.

Corning’s stock has nearly doubled in the last 12 months, dramatically outperforming the S&P 500’s 16%. In 2025, the company posted net income of $1.6 billion on sales of $15.6 billion, up 19% over 2024. This year, analysts expect revenue to jump nearly 25% to $19.3 billion and net income to double. And Corning’s 67-year-old CEO, Wendell Weeks, aims to hit $40 billion in revenue by 2030.

“Fiber optics and all the products that are being used today [for generative AI] were originally invented for telecom,” says Weeks, a Harvard MBA who prefers tailored suits to the jeans and sneakers favored by West Coast tech tycoons. “We invented a lot of them decades ago, and we’re seeing a total reinvention of that product set.”

How to play it

By Jon D. Markman

Jon D. Markman is president of Markman Capital Insight.

The company is also smart in its partnerships. “Corning is very humble in strategic alliances and other cooperative technology ventures,” says Kathryn Harrigan, a professor at Columbia Business School.

Proving yet again that you can teach this old glassmaker new tricks.