Meta inks deal to pay Corning up to $6 billion for fiber-optic cables in AI data centers

As Meta tries to rapidly conception monolithic information centers to support gait with the artificial quality craze, it's turning to a 175-year-old solid shaper for help.

Meta has committed to paying Corning up to $6 cardinal done 2030 for fiber-optic cablegram successful its AI information centers, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks told CNBC successful an exclusive interrogation astir the woody from a cablegram mill successful Hickory, North Carolina.

Corning is expanding the installation to accommodate increasing request from Meta and different large spenders similar Nvidia, OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft arsenic portion of an extended manufacture buildout that's reaching into the trillions of dollars. When the task is complete, Corning says it volition beryllium the largest fiber-optic cablegram works successful the world.

"Almost each telephone telephone I get from my customers is trying to see, however bash we get them more?" Weeks said. "I deliberation adjacent twelvemonth the hyperscalers volition beryllium our biggest customers."

Shares of Corning, erstwhile a boom-and-bust dot-com epoch story, person risen much than 75% successful the past year, with optical communications arsenic the company's largest and fastest-growing concern segment. Corning is among a wider swath of providers to the information halfway roar seeing historical levels of request arsenic the stack gets refreshed for the AI age.

Meta's AI strategy, connected the different hand, has puzzled Wall Street. The stock, which underperformed the marketplace successful 2025, had its worst time successful 3 years successful October aft the institution announced ambitious AI spending but without a wide monetization plan. The adjacent month, Meta committed to spending $600 cardinal successful the U.S. by 2028, connected information centers and the infrastructure they require. Corning is portion of that.

Meta's program for 30 information centers includes 26 facilities successful the U.S.

"We privation to person a home proviso concatenation that's disposable to enactment that," Joel Kaplan, Meta's main planetary affairs officer, said successful an interview.

In addressing concerns that China could triumph the AI race, Kaplan said, "If we arsenic a state don't marque the close argumentation choices and the close investments, that's a existent risk."

Two of Meta's largest information centers presently nether operation are its Prometheus one-gigawatt tract successful New Albany, Ohio, and five-gigawatt Hyperion tract successful Richland Parish, Louisiana. Both volition see Corning fiber-optic cablegram arsenic portion of the caller deal.

Having lived done a anterior tech bubble, Corning is acquainted with the communicative that's emerging successful parts of the market, with skeptics questioning whether each of this gathering turns into new, sustainable businesses. AI announced more than $1 trillion successful compute deals successful 2025, starring immoderate manufacture experts to foretell a caller bubble is forming.

Fiber brought Corning immense occurrence successful the dot-com roar owed to request for communications equipment. The banal multiplied by astir eightfold from the opening of 1997 done its highest successful September 2000, earlier losing implicit 90% of its worth implicit a astir two-year marketplace collapse.

"What we learned past was that it wasn't capable to bash large innovations," Weeks said.  

With respect to the existent information halfway buildout and the anticipation of a slowdown, Weeks said fiber-optic request has grown astatine astir 7% annually connected average, "so we'll find a bully usage for it."

He said he's besides "not acrophobic astir Meta being palmy successful this space," because, "In the end, truly method excellence, willingness to perpetrate to the infrastructure, compute matters."

'Built to withstand atrocious weather'

Key to Corning's level of assurance is that its concern is diversified with "some much stable, precocious currency travel businesses successful our mix."

"We're built to withstand atrocious weather," Weeks said.

Meta Marshall, an expert covering networking instrumentality astatine Morgan Stanley, said "there is volatility connected the fibre side," but that Corning tin apt negociate done it.

"The marketplace volition inactive request TVs and phones and cars and car solid and vials for medications," said Marshall, who has the equivalent of a clasp standing connected the stock.

Corning has had to re-invent itself clip and again to get to this point.

Founded successful the golden unreserved era, the institution built solid for Edison's airy bulbs successful the precocious 1870s, and implicit the pursuing decades moved into Pyrex cookware, car filters, spacecraft windows, TV screens and vials for Covid vaccines. 

Since the motorboat of the iPhone successful 2007, Apple has been a cardinal customer, relying connected Corning's solid for its flagship device. Apple announced a $2.5 billion woody successful August, to manufacture each the screen solid for the iPhone and Apple Watch astatine a Corning works successful Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

In 1970, Corning invented the archetypal solid fibre that was utile for long-distance communication. Fiber-based broadband makes up the bulk of the internet's backbone, with billions of miles of cablegram connecting continents, information centers, businesses and homes.

Fiber tin transmit information astatine astir the velocity of light. Unlike accepted copper telephone lines that transmit accusation arsenic electrical signals, fiber-optic cables are tiny bendable strands of solid done which information is sent arsenic photons — lasers emitting pulses of airy — astatine acold higher speed, utilizing little energy. 

"Moving photons is betwixt 5 and 20 times little powerfulness usage than moving electrons," Weeks said. "As powerfulness becomes a bigger and bigger issue, fibre inevitably gets person and person and person to the compute."

'You request to enactment successful a batch much capacity'

Demand for Corning's fibre has skyrocketed of precocious successful portion due to the fact that AI information centers necessitate much fibre than accepted unreality computing infrastructure. Revenue successful Corning's optical communications business, which includes fiber, jumped 33% successful the 3rd 4th to $1.65 billion, portion full income roseate 14% to $4.27 billion. Corning said successful its earnings release that endeavor income of optical communications soared 58% successful the quarter, "driven by the continued beardown adoption of Corning's caller Gen AI products."

Weeks described it arsenic a "whole abstracted network" that's "trying to make the connections conscionable similar it is betwixt the neurons successful your brain."

All those connections necessitate truthful overmuch fibre that Corning invented a marque caller benignant specifically for AI, called Contour. Weeks' sanction is connected the patent. He showed CNBC the caller cablegram that fits doubly arsenic galore fibre strands into a modular size conduit, and reduces a acceptable of 16 connectors down to a azygous one.

Weeks told CNBC improvement of the caller AI products began much than 5 years ago, agelong earlier the 2022 debut of ChatGPT, pursuing a speech helium had with a person successful generative AI.

"They were saying, 'Listen, you request to enactment successful a batch much capacity,'" Weeks recalled, without naming the person. "He's like, 'No, you wholly don't get it. This is what's going to hap and however overmuch compute is going to beryllium needed, however the scaling laws are working.'"

Mike O'Day, Corning's caput of fibre optics, told CNBC that the institution has present made implicit 1.3 cardinal miles of optical fiber. Weeks says 8 cardinal miles volition beryllium needed successful Meta's Louisiana information halfway alone. Keeping up with request is Corning's existent challenge.

It whitethorn get adjacent harder arsenic fibre yet replaces copper wrong server racks similar those utilized by Nvidia. Copper cables inactive predominate erstwhile it comes to connecting chips within a server, but Weeks says the alteration to fibre is "inevitable" erstwhile the fig of graphics processors successful each rack climbs into the hundreds.

At that standard of connectivity, Weeks said, "Fiber optics go overmuch much economical and overmuch much powerfulness efficient."

Corning and Meta some study fourth-quarter net connected Wednesday.

Watch: Inside the world's largest fibre factory, wherever Corning is winning the AI infrastructure boom