# A Single Meta Data Center Will Require “8 Million Miles of Fiber.” These Stocks Are Cashing In On the 802 Data Centers Currently Under Construction > Source: > Published: 2026-08-21 13:22:10+00:00 The most vivid number in the AI infrastructure buildout is a length of glass. Dr. Dong Hao, Corning’s Market Technology Development Manager for Optical Communications, told the Broadband Nation Expo in Orlando on Nov. 18, 2025: “It’s so gigantic that it’s going to consume 8 million miles of optical fiber in that data center, alone. How do you manufacture that? We are dealing with the capacity crunch.” Corning CEO Wendell Weeks later repeated the figure to Jim Cramer on Mad Money, framing it as enough fiber to circle the Earth 320 times, and said fiber is replacing copper in AI data centers because copper “burns hot” at scale. Important context: 8 million miles is a Corning estimate, not a Meta-published number, and it is ambiguous whether “that data center” refers to a single building or the entire campus. ## Where the Number Comes From: Meta’s Hyperion Campus The reference point is Meta’s “Hyperion” campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana. As of July 2026 Meta expanded it to 5 gigawatts, more than doubling an original 2GW plan, committing up to $50 billion. An earlier phase was reported at $27 billion, an evolving buildout rather than a conflicting number. The site spans roughly 4 million square feet across about 3,650 acres, structured as a joint venture with Blue Owl Capital, with Turner Construction, DPR Construction and Mortenson building, and Entergy funding gas plants, batteries and nuclear uprates. ## Why Fiber Demand Is Exploding NVIDIA GPU clusters are scaling from 72-GPU racks (NVL72) toward pods above 1,000 GPUs (NVL1152). At those speeds copper works only to about 3 meters before signal degrades, forcing optical fiber and co-packaged optics (CPO). Jensen Huang: “two years from now, at NVL1152, it’s all CPO.” TrendForce forecasts CPO going from a negligible market share in 2025 to over 35% by 2030. Corning management echoed the physics on its Q2 call: “We continue to see strong demand for our Gen AI products and enterprise networks, and our orders are accelerating.” ## Construction Boom: 802 Under Way, Thousands Announced Per Aterio, cited by CNN Business on Aug. 6, 2026, AI companies have announced 3,969 new US data centers and just 802 are currently under construction. A separate Bloomberg NEF figure, referenced in a Progressive Policy Institute piece tied to a June 3, 2026 report, put US data centers under construction at 831. CNN’s framing: despite intense [community backlash](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/08/20/kentucky-family-turns-down-26-million-to-build-data-center-on-their-farm-as-7-in-10-americans-dont-want-a-data-center-near-them/), construction is proceeding on only about a fifth of announced projects. For context on backlash, see [a Kentucky family that refused $26 million](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/08/20/kentucky-family-turns-down-26-million-to-build-data-center-on-their-farm-as-7-in-10-americans-dont-want-a-data-center-near-them/), and on power demand, pipeline ETFs locking in decades of gas demand. ## Ranking the Five Optical Suppliers Cashing In All prices below are Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026 closes. Four of the five names fell over the past week, two sharply. The “cashing in” story plays out over 2026 year-to-date and one-year windows. ### 1. Corning (GLW) **Corning** ([NYSE:GLW](https://247wallst.com/companies/GLW/) | [GLW Price Prediction](https://247wallst.com/companies/glw/price-prediction)) is the most direct beneficiary of the fiber crunch. On Jan. 27, 2026, Corning signed a multiyear agreement worth up to $6 billion through 2030 to supply Meta with fiber-optic cable, sending the stock up 16% that day. Corning is expanding a Meta-funded North Carolina plant into what will become the world’s largest fiber-optic cable factory, and Weeks has disclosed the company also supplies NVIDIA, OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Q2 optical communications sales reached $2.07 billion, up 32% year over year, with enterprise sales up 65% to $1.27 billion. Thursday close: $151.45, down 0.66% on the day, down 4.47% on the week, down 6.75% on the month, up 73.56% YTD and up 137.03% over one year. ### 2. Lumentum (LITE) **Lumentum** ([NASDAQ:LITE](https://247wallst.com/companies/LITE/)) delivered Q4 FY26 revenue of $1.01 billion, up 109% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS of $3.23. The stock jumped 15% to $942 on its Aug. 12, 2026 earnings beat and received a $2 billion direct equity investment from NVIDIA. That post-earnings move has partly unwound: Thursday close $879.28, sits below the $942 level. One week: down 0.13%. One month: up 4.98%. YTD: up 138.55%. One year: up 658.72%. CEO Michael Hurlston: “AI compute workloads increase in both speed and bandwidth, data center architects are turning to optical links as a primary means of connectivity.” ### 3. Coherent (COHR) **Coherent** ([NYSE:COHR](https://247wallst.com/companies/COHR/)) generated fiscal 2026 revenue of $7.12 billion, with datacenter and communications at 79% of Q4 revenue. Shares rose 9% on Aug. 12, 2026 on Lumentum read-through; Coherent also received a $2 billion NVIDIA equity stake and posted 34% year-over-year revenue growth with book-to-bill above 4x. Thursday close: $290.03, up 0.89% on the day, down 11.37% on the week, down 8.57% on the month, up 57.14% YTD and up 235.10% over one year. ### 4. Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) **Applied Optoelectronics** ([NASDAQ:AAOI](https://247wallst.com/companies/AAOI/)) posted its fifth consecutive record-revenue quarter on Aug. 6, 2026, and management said demand will outpace capacity “through mid-2027.” Q2 revenue was $191.9 million, with 800G revenue up more than tenfold year over year, and customer demand running 20% to 40% higher than available capacity. Thursday close: $129.10, up 5.66% on the day, down 0.75% on the week, up 8.25% on the month, up 270.34% YTD and up 488.69% over one year. AAOI was the only one of the five to rise on Thursday. ### 5. Broadcom (AVGO), the Divergent Case **Broadcom** ([NASDAQ:AVGO](https://247wallst.com/companies/AVGO/)) makes the switch and ASIC silicon enabling CPO but has not tracked the others. Q2 AI semiconductor revenue was $10.8 billion, up 143% year over year, and Q3 guidance calls for $16 billion in AI revenue, up more than 200%. Thursday close: $364.03, down 12.87% on the week, down 5.81% on the month, up 5.57% YTD and up 25.94% over one year. One analyst framed the divergence as investors “selling the entity carrying the financing risk while buying the component suppliers.” Broadcom sits at the platform layer, financing gigawatts of compute for Anthropic and OpenAI while pure-play optics names capture the fiber-count math. ## What It Adds Up To The 8 million miles of fiber in a single Meta site is a proxy for a fast-scaling, already-profitable capital cycle running through a handful of suppliers. Corning, Lumentum, Coherent and Applied Optoelectronics show where the money is landing in 2026. Broadcom shows where the market draws a different line around risk. The chipmakers get the headlines, but the power, cooling and fiber suppliers behind the buildout are doing a lot of the actual earning, which is why we pulled seven of them into [a free report on the picks-and-shovels side of the AI boom](https://247wallst.com/pages/ai-power-seven-offer-d905ec99.html). *Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.*