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Fibre-optic equipment manufacturer, Corning, has set out plans to increase its number of manufacturing plants in North Carolina, in a deal with Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The agreement will see Corning supply its fibre optic technology to Meta’s data centres.
Meta has reportedly agreed to a deal in which it will pay Corning $6 billion between now and 2030. To meet the supply demands of this agreement, Corning plans to expand its manufacturing facility in Hickory, North Carolina, in addition to further unnamed sites in the state.
According to Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Meta selected Corning for its ability to supply “high-performance fiber optic cables to our AI infrastructure needs.”
The increased demand for data centres is evident throughout the tech industry, with companies including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft investing billions of dollars to upgrade and develop new facilities.
In the US, Meta has announced it will be spending between $115 billion and $135 billion in 2026 on new data centres. Two of the largest data centre projects will be developed in New Albany, Ohio, and Holly Ridge, Louisiana, according to Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Corning is one of the few survivors of the dot-com era, as demand for its fibre-optic supplies soared. Although the company experienced a downturn in fortunes once the dot-com bubble burst, it has come back successfully, with sales rising 13% in 2025 and stocks climbing 103% in value during the same period. With the AI boom now at the forefront of investors’ minds, Corning appears better positioned than many competitors, drawing on its experience surviving the dot-com era.
Corning introduced a range of new products in March 2025, focusing on the emergence of the AI sector. It announced a suite of cables and hardware that could “accommodate 36 times more fiber connections in a data centre rack unit than a legacy connector.”
As Meta plans to “expand the size of [its] infrastructure primarily through data centres, subsea and terrestrial fibre optic cable systems,” Corning could yet see increased and sustained demand for its fibre optic offerings.
(Image source: “Fiber Optic Globe” by JaredZammit is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)
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