Corning has announced a multi-year agreement with Meta Platforms worth up to $6 billion (£4.7bn) to supply optical fibre, cable, and connectivity solutions for Meta’s US data centre expansion.
The partnership represents one of the largest commitments to domestic optical communications manufacturing in recent years and underscores the scale of infrastructure investment required to support AI workloads.
Under the agreement, Corning will supply its latest generation of optical products, specifically designed to meet the density and scale demands of advanced AI clusters. To support this, Corning will expand manufacturing capabilities across its North Carolina operations, including a significant capacity increase at its optical cable manufacturing facility in Hickory, where Meta will serve as the anchor customer.
Scaling optical data centre infrastructure for the AI era
The investment is projected to increase Corning’s employment in North Carolina by 15% to 20%, sustaining a skilled workforce of more than 5,000 employees. This includes scientists, engineers, and production staff at two of the world’s largest optical fibre and cable manufacturing facilities.
"This long-term partnership with Meta reflects Corning’s commitment to develop, innovate, and manufacture the critical technologies that power next-generation data centres here in the US," said Wendell Weeks, chairman and chief executive officer at Corning.
"Together with Meta, we are strengthening domestic supply chains and helping ensure that advanced data centres are built using US innovation and advanced manufacturing."
Shifting from fibre pairs to fibre-wide architectures
Meta’s AI infrastructure requirements are driving a fundamental shift in cable design. Modern AI training requires "all-to-all" communication patterns that differ significantly from traditional cloud workloads. This necessitates "fibre-wide" architectures where high-performance cables, such as Corning’s RocketRibbon with Contour fibre, can fit twice as many strands into existing conduits.
"Building the most advanced data centres in the US requires world-class partners and American manufacturing," said Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer at Meta. "We are proud to partner with Corning—a company with deep expertise in optical connectivity—for the high-performance fibre optic cables our AI infrastructure needs."
Market context: The $18bn datacom surge from AI training clusters
The partnership arrives as hyperscalers accelerate data centre buildouts to keep pace with the "terabit transition." According to analysis from Cignal AI, global datacom revenue exceeded $18 billion in 2025, driven primarily by high-speed modules and the back-end infrastructure supporting AI training clusters.
Analysts suggest this deal alone could potentially double Corning’s annual fibre segment revenue as it scales to meet Meta’s requirement for millions of miles of optical fibre across its US fleet.
