Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Corning Inc
Amazon strikes deal with Corning to boost fiber-optic production for data centers
Corning chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks discusses the company's newly announced partnership with Amazon to expand fiber-optic production for data centers on 'The Claman Countdown.' #fox #media #breakingnews #us #usa #new #news #breaking #foxbusiness #amazon #ai #artificialintelligence #technology #business #economy #datacenter #infrastructure #fiber #fiberoptic #cloud #innovation #manufacturing #growth #investment #markets #amazonwebservices #leadership
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About Wendell Weeks
Wendell Weeks, chairman, president and CEO of Corning, announced in June 2026 a partnership with Amazon to expand fiber-optic production for data centers. Weeks said Amazon would make investments to expand Corning's manufacturing sites in North Carolina and create 1,000 jobs at the facilities, describing the deal as "multibillion dollars, multi-year." He characterized the AI boom as not only a technology story but also a manufacturing story, stating that the infrastructure required for AI combined with pro-manufacturing policies creates an opportunity to "reestablish the preeminence of American manufacturing." Weeks also noted that Corning has concluded additional large long-term agreements with hyperscale customers, each similar in size and duration to a prior agreement with Meta, and said the company is entering long-term agreements to share the risk of expansions required by accelerating growth. On earnings calls throughout 2025 and early 2026, Weeks outlined Corning's plan to double its revenue run rate from approximately $20 billion to $40 billion by the end of 2030. He reported that the company achieved its 20% operating margin target a year ahead of plan and has been buying back shares, stating that over the last decade Corning repurchased close to 50% of its outstanding shares. Weeks also highlighted Corning's solar wafer production, saying the company had built the largest solar ingot and wafer facility in the United States, sold out its 2025 capacity, and committed more than 80% of capacity for the next five years. He said Corning expects to triple its solar sales run rate by 2027.
Transcript (21 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Reporter0:03
That rule American technology abroad. And we have this at the moment, a Fox Business Alert on a big deal involving Corning and Amazon. Amazon right now down about half a percent, but look at Corning, up 5 percent. Smashing hire after announcing a deal with Amazon to produce optical fiber for data centers. As participant of the deal, Amazon will make investments to expand Corning's manufacturing sites across North Carolina and create 1,000 jobs at the facilities. So just to explain, fiber optics are thin strands of glass and plastic that transmit data at the speed of light. Essentially, they're the plumbing required to move this massive amount of data needed for AI data centers and all the chatbot queries you guys are putting out there.
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Amazon Official0:59
This is a workforce development program at a community college to train local residents for high paying technical roles. This is the next chapter, not the first one. Data center activity has grown U.S. manufacturing jobs by nearly 70% since 2017. And deals like this one drive that momentum forward.
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Liz1:18
So we've heard from Amazon but now let's hear from Corning's CEO. Here to tell us more in a Fox Business exclusive is Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks. Wendell, how long was the deal with Amazon in the works? How did it come about?
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Wendell Weeks1:37
We've been a customer and supplier with Amazon for many, many years. But we began working on this new architecture for them over the last year. And what you see here is a culmination of what they're planning to build as they go forward for their Gen AI infrastructure.
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Liz1:55
I'm just going to come out and ask, what is the value of this deal?
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Wendell Weeks1:59
It's multibillion dollars, multi-year. But what also is important is Amazon's absolute leader in both cloud and AI. So for us to take the lead in helping design the optical networks of the future for them, it's a big deal for us.
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Liz2:16
Well, you signed a deal in January with Meta that was worth about $6 billion to ramp up the production of fiber optics for their data centers. Is it above that? Is it above the $6 billion?
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Wendell Weeks2:29
No. All we're willing to disclose is it's multibillion dollars. We always have a number of deals in our pipeline, a number of agreements, and we tend to only announce when our customers want us to, and that's exactly what we're doing.
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Liz2:44
You have had to scale up. You said that you would scale up by 10x the production of fiber optics and the fiber that is so valuable to connect the chips with the actual servers, all that's happening in the data centers. How much more of a ramp-up in production will you have to do now that you got this Amazon deal?
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Wendell Weeks3:07
I think one of the things that's missed about the AI story, we tend to tell it as a technology story, but it also is a manufacturing story. The amount of infrastructure that AI is going to require, linked with pro-manufacturing policies from this administration, create an opportunity to reestablish the preeminence of American manufacturing. That's the story today. We're going to add a thousand new high paying jobs because of how much we're adding in North Carolina. We're adding with Amazon a partnership to help train folks so that they can do these highly technical jobs in our factories.
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Liz3:48
Those are full-time jobs?
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Wendell Weeks3:52
Full-time jobs, and they're great paying. The type of jobs people can build a family around and build communities with.
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Liz3:59
Six figure?
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Wendell Weeks4:00
Yes.
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Liz4:01
Okay, that's news. I know you're getting funding help from Nvidia, about $500 million. What's the capital outlay that will be required to sort of deliver for both Meta and Amazon?
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Wendell Weeks4:14
Taken together, we've laid out an overall plan between now and the end of 2030. What we're trying to do is double our run rate from around $20 billion of revenue run rate at the end of this year to $40 billion by the end of 2030. That takes talent, treasure, and time, and these agreements are an important piece of that.
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Liz4:38
You make a lot of other stuff. You make Gorilla Glass for Apple phones. You make all kinds of specialty glass. Now you're going in a heavy tilt toward the AI business part of it. Is there any part of you that gets concerned you're overweighing to AI, which obviously is susceptible to abrupt volume changes and, who knows, changes in what? We've seen a lot of data center build that's actually been delayed something like 50% because different pieces of it, whether it's the grid or the building of these opportunities, it's delayed because of materials. So are you worried at all there's too much emphasis on the AI part of your business?
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Wendell Weeks5:23
You and I have known each other for a long time. We spoke about Gorilla almost two decades ago. When we first met, just last year we did a major announcement with Apple with a $2.55 billion investment in Kentucky to meet 100% of their global needs for cover glass for both phones and watch. And the same basic story of being a technology leader, being best in the world at what we do and very dedicated to manufacturing where our customers are played out there, and it plays out here.
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Liz6:03
Do you have any new long-term fiber or photonic contracts in the works beyond that?
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Wendell Weeks6:10
Yes. Part of that doubling in our run rate means we have quite a pipeline of agreements and deep technical customer decisions going on, so more to come.
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Liz6:20
Lots of news here. 11,000 jobs in North Carolina. Six-figure paying and the AI march continues. Good to see you, Wendell. Thank you very much for coming on to talk about this new deal.