A Meta deal just turned this 175-year-old company into a linchpin of the AI data center boom

You might know Corning for its iconic kitchen brands, like Pyrex and CorningWare. You might remember that Thomas Edison relied on the company to develop glass for the light bulb, or that in 1970, Corning invented the first glass fiber that was useful for long-distance communication, while in 2007 Steve Jobs turned to Corning, which is based in Corning, N.Y., to create the hard-to-shatter glass that now wraps every iPhone.

You probably don’t think of it as an AI company, but a new deal...