Corning will invest $585 million to expand optical fiber manufacturing at its Wilmington, North Carolina campus and add 414 jobs over five years. Confirmed October 21, the project will support next-generation networks and previously announced long-term customer agreements as AI network operators and telecommunications carriers expand their optical infrastructure.

The expansion builds on a Wilmington workforce of about 1,000. New positions will carry average annual salaries above $85,000, with an annual payroll contribution exceeding $35 million once hiring is complete. Wilmington and New Hanover County approved performance-based incentives tied to investment and job creation. The campus opened in 1966 and subsequently became the site of the world’s first optical fiber manufacturing plant.

The investment follows a series of large supply commitments across Corning’s customer base. Meta signed a multiyear agreement worth up to $6 billion in January for optical fiber, cable and connectivity, including a separate cable manufacturing expansion in Hickory, North Carolina. Verizon followed in September with a multibillion-dollar agreement covering more than 80 million fiber miles—approximately 129 million fiber-kilometers—from 2027 through 2032, while AT&T signed a multiyear agreement exceeding $3 billion for fiber and cable. The Wilmington announcement does not allocate its new output among individual customers.

“For decades, our talented workforce here has helped keep Corning at the forefront of optical communications,” said John McGirr, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Optical Fiber and Cable.

Analysis

Wilmington puts a specific capital commitment behind the longer procurement horizons now visible in optical networking. Corning’s customer agreements span both fiber-intensive AI data centers and carrier access and backbone networks, giving the manufacturing expansion a broader demand base. The investment concerns the physical fiber supply chain; it does not establish a particular transceiver speed, optical architecture or finished-network capacity. Corning has not disclosed the expansion’s incremental annual fiber output or a detailed commissioning schedule in the announcement.