RALEIGH – Corning is gearing up for growing demand in the fiber-optic market by building a new manufacturing plant. But it won’t be in North Carolina where the company already has two facilities.
“The largest and lowest cost manufacturing facilities for fiber in the world are located in the U.S., in North Carolina — and both belong to Corning,” Corning chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks told Axios in an interview.
A year ago, Corning announced plans to expand its operations in Hickory and add hundreds of jobs.
But on Tuesday Corning – in partnership with AT&T – said its latest plant is going to be built near Phoenix in Gilbert, Arizona. Some 250 new jobs will be created.
“We believe access to broadband means access to opportunity – from education to healthcare to quality of life,” Weeks said in the announcement. “Corning is doing our part to make sure everyone – regardless of where they live – has access to reliable, high-speed connections enabled by optical fiber. We are proud to continue partnering with AT&T and to expand U.S. manufacturing capacity and train the next generation of American workers – and we’re grateful for the opportunity to work with our customers and with the U.S. government to make this a reality.”
Corning said it has invested “more than $500 million” to expand its fiber and cable manufacturing.
“Public and private investments in broadband, 5G, and the cloud are accelerating a large, multi-year wave of growth for fiber-based networks – and Corning, as the world leader in passive optical communications, is uniquely positioned to support these network builds,” the company said in the announcement.
“This investment is a significant step forward for our country and building world-class broadband networks that will help narrow the nation’s digital divide,” said AT&T Chief Executive Officer John Stankey. “This new facility will provide additional optical cable capacity to meet the record demand the industry is seeing for fast, reliable connectivity. We are also working with Corning to create training programs to equip the next generation of technicians with the skills to build the networks that will expand high-speed internet access to millions of Americans.”
