NEW YORK, May 11, 2026, 16:19 EDT
Corning Incorporated surged Monday, gaining 10.84% to finish at $207.21, and flirting with a 52-week high of almost $209. The move followed BofA analysts putting the glass and fiber-optics company on their “U.S. 1 List”—the bank’s top picks—and built on momentum from last week’s Nvidia deal. StockAnalysis
It’s not just chipmakers drawing investor attention. Companies like Corning, which supplies fiber and optical connectors, are in focus as AI infrastructure spending ramps up. Those products keep data flowing—fast and at scale—inside sprawling AI data centers, where processors churn through massive information loads.
BofA moved Corning onto its list earlier Monday, The Fly said. That followed a stretch where Wall Street names lifted their price targets on the stock—Oppenheimer to $210, UBS to $223, Citi up to $225—all tracked by StockAnalysis market-news roundups.
Corning and Nvidia unveiled a multiyear commercial and tech tie-up on May 6, aiming to ramp up U.S. manufacturing of advanced optical connectivity products for AI infrastructure. Corning plans to boost domestic optical connectivity capacity tenfold, while U.S. fiber production is set to jump more than 50%.
The companies say they’ll add three advanced manufacturing plants—two in Texas, one in North Carolina—bringing more than 3,000 jobs. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described AI as “the largest infrastructure buildout of our time.” Corning’s Wendell Weeks called it “a manufacturing story” in addition to a technology story.
Nvidia snapped up warrants from Corning, shelling out $500 million in total, according to a securities filing. The deal hands Nvidia the option to take as many as 15 million Corning shares off the table at $180 apiece, plus a pre-funded warrant for another 3 million shares—those at a nominal exercise price.
Turns out, the amount of financial backing might be bigger than initially disclosed. Nvidia has put up several billion dollars—on top of its equity-tied investment—to back Corning’s plant construction, both Huang and Weeks told CNBC last week, Reuters reported.
Corning lifted its Springboard growth plan, now forecasting a $20 billion annualized sales run rate by 2026’s close. The company’s own targets move up from there: $30 billion by 2028, and $40 billion by 2030. For context, a sales run rate reflects what annual sales would look like if current or projected quarterly numbers hold up.
The first quarter gave the bulls some ammunition. Corning reported an 18% jump in core sales, its preferred non-GAAP metric, to $4.35 billion. Core EPS climbed 30% to 70 cents. Optical Communications took off, up 36%, while Solar surged 80%.
This isn’t only about Corning. Optical-networking stocks Lumentum and Coherent jumped too, Barron’s noted Monday, as the market chased AI data-center bandwidth plays. Now, Corning finds itself grouped with AI infrastructure suppliers rather than just being seen as a traditional glass company.
One snag remains. Corning’s non-optical units are still patchy, and Reuters pointed out last month that sluggish electronics upgrades along with weaker smartphone demand continue to drag on segments of the business. For the second quarter, Corning projected core sales around $4.6 billion—just under what analysts expected, according to Reuters.
There’s a risk here: AI-driven orders could lag behind investors’ hopes, factory buildouts might stretch out longer than planned, or key cloud buyers could rethink their budgets. Corning has flagged plenty of moving parts—demand, competition, supply chain bumps, government support, and shifts in capital spending—all of which could knock its results off track.
