Zayo Taps Corning for More Fiber

Zayo has lined up much of the fiber that it will need for the next few years of expansion projects. They have signed a long term fiber supply agreement with none other than Corning that will keep those big spools filled through the year 2030. The deal comes as the role of fiber buildouts comes into clearer focus in supporting the AI data center boom.

Zayo has announced expansion plans that will add 15,000 route miles of fiber network through 2030. That includes a lot of new longhaul fiber, but also the metro and regional infrastructure that goes along with it to hook up all those new AI data centers everyone is building. Zayo certainly isn’t the only infrastructure builder and operator preparing for expanded fiber deployments either.

With AI investments not slowing down at all, the supply chain necessary to keep all these projects across the industry on track could certainly be daunting. It certainly wouldn’t be a good thing to run into a supply bottleneck for the key bit of infrastructure carrying the data. New fiber in the quantities we may need requires manufacturing capacity, which in term requires lead time to put in place. Corning will therefore now have the visibility to make those investments.

This sort of deal doesn’t mean a shortage is coming, of course. But if Zayo is playing it ‘better safe than sorry’, others are probably also taking a hard look at it.

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