AT&T Signs Over $3 Billion Fiber Deal With Corning as Data Demand Surges

AT&T has extended its contract with Corning to buy fiber and cable for more than $3 billion to upgrade the US telecoms company's network as demand for data explodes.

This deal comes at a time when fiber networks are growing in importance to telecoms companies. Although wireless networks are still growing, global internet usage and data-dependent services are requiring higher-capacity fiber connections.

The pressure is only increasing with artificial intelligence workloads, cloud and connected devices. Fiber networks are what enable the superfast, high-capacity connections that can move vast amounts of data between homes, businesses, cloud data centers and other key data sources.

"Today, the average home on our fiber network uses more than 1 TB of data each month, which is five times the amount used in 2016," AT&T said. "We expect consumer data use to grow significantly as customers consume an increasing amount of streaming, cloud and AI-enabled services."

The deal, which will involve Corning providing AT&T with fiber and cable needed for the network build, is valued at over $3 billion, the companies said, without elaborating on commercial terms.

AT&T has plans to reach 60 million locations with fiber by 2025. The cable company also said its $5.75 billion deal to buy Lumen Technologies' fiber business has grown its overall fiber footprint. AT&T has separately allocated more than $250 billion over five years to improve connectivity infrastructure throughout the U.S.

The new deal extends a longstanding relationship between the companies. In 2024, AT&T and Corning announced another multi-year purchase deal for over $1 billion in next-generation fiber, cable and connectivity solutions.

Corning stands to gain from the wider wave of fiber demand - telecoms and tech firms are investing billions of dollars into building out more data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company also secured multimillion-dollar fiber supply agreements with leading tech firms, with more to come, as that hyperscale demand ramps up.

Largely driven by the AI rush, AT&T's new agreement underscores how the spigot of data flowing through networks is being turned to high gear, impacting infrastructure far beyond the traditional data center or computer chip. Digital services have been producing what's being called 'growth in the cloud' for years.