Corning has just announced the next generation of its Gorilla Glass named the Gorilla Glass 2. Not only is the new glass much harder but it is thinner and is significantly more scratch resistant than the previous iteration.

Corning will officially unveil the new glass at CES next week, along with a 82-inch multitouch LCD display using the glass. While we are not sure when we will begin to see devices ship with the glass but we can imagine it will become the go-to sturdy glass for manufacturers going forward. Gorilla Glass is currently found in almost 600 different products today and is protecting more than 500 million products worldwide.

According to Corning, the Gorilla Glass 2 will be harder than any other glass.

Carning has just announced through a press release (below) that its 2nd generation of ultra-tough screen-protecting glass the "Gorilla Glass 2", will start to appear on devices in April or May this year.

The first shipments have been sent out to the company partners. You saw the Gorilla Glass 2 in action back at CES 2011 and looking forward to see on a device.

Corning Delivering Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2 for Next Generation Consumer Electronic Devices

CORNING, N.Y., February 27, 2012 – Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) today announced the first shipments of Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2 to key device makers who plan to utilize the glass in new consumer electronics devices planned for release in 2012.

“Corning’s new glass composition, Gorilla Glass 2, enables slimmer and sleeker devices, brighter images, and greater touch sensitivity, providing an ideal solution for the newest, most sophisticated smartphones, tablets, and personal computers,” said David R. Velasquez, global director, Marketing and Commercial Operations, Corning® Gorilla® Glass.“

Since we launched Gorilla Glass 2 just last month at CES, we’ve qualified the glass with more than half of our current customers, and have shipped our first orders to customers who plan to start production and release product in the first quarter this year.”

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 is the next generation of the widely accepted damage-resistant cover glass for consumer electronic devices, enabling up to 20% reduction in cover glass thickness without sacrificing the performance consumers have come to expect from the world’s most widely deployed strengthened cover glass.

Introduced in 2007, Corning Gorilla Glass set the industry standard for damage-resistant cover glass. Today it is the most widely deployed cover glass, used by more than 30 major brands and has been designed into more than 600 product models, spanning over 600 million units worldwide.

Corning will demonstrate the new glass performance at the Pepcom event, MobileFocus Global, on Feb. 27, in Barcelona, Spain.