Nvidia and Corning just announced a massive, multiyear deal to expand U.S. manufacturing for new optical fiber technology, likely to flip the script for AI data center efficiency. As a part of the partnership, Corning will build three new factories in North Carolina and Texas entirely devoted to products for Nvidia, creating 3,000 new jobs. And while the companies didn’t share many specifics, it’s likely the deal is worth tens of billions of dollars. This could be the big deal many analysts have been waiting for — the debut of a new technology called co-packaged optics. It could eventually mean Nvidia replaces the 5,000 copper cables, two miles worth, inside its rack-scale systems like Vera Rubin, with tiny glass fibers made by Corning, something that, until now, has never been accomplished at scale. Co-packaged optics would vastly reduce the energy needs of an AI data center, because glass is far more energy efficient than copper. CNBC’s Katie Tarasov explains what this deal could mean for the AI boom.
Credit to : CNBC