With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence demand, tech giant Meta is increasing its investment in underlying infrastructure. According to CNBC, Wendell Weeks, CEO of Corning, revealed that Meta has committed to paying up to $6 billion to Corning by 2030 for high-performance fiber optic cables for its AI data centers.
Expanding Production: Building the World's Largest Fiber Optic Factory
To meet the rising demands of Meta and core customers such as NVIDIA, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, Corning is taking large-scale expansion actions:
Factory Expansion: Corning is expanding its production facilities located in Hickory, North Carolina.
World's Largest: After this project is completed, the Hickory factory is expected to become the largest fiber optic cable manufacturing base in the world.
Industry Background: A Trillion-Dollar Competition
This large order reflects that the "arms race" in the AI field has extended to the fundamental hardware level.
High-Level Investment: Meta's long-term commitment not only secures key supply chains but also demonstrates its deep layout for future AI computing architecture.
Market Size Expectations: Corning pointed out that the related expansion plans are evolving toward a trillion-dollar industry scale, with fiber optic connection technology becoming a critical link supporting the stable operation of large-scale AI clusters.
Through this deal, Corning further solidifies its position as a key hardware supplier in the AI era, while Meta paves the way for the training and inference of its next-generation AI models by strengthening optical communication links.
