Meta’s new multi-year supply agreement with Corning is the latest indicator that the US data center build-out, especially around AI infrastructure, is still accelerating, and that the long-term disposition pipeline for high-end equipment is growing with it.
The deal links fresh manufacturing investment in North Carolina to a future wave of server, network and optical hardware that will eventually move through ITAD and scrap channels.
On Jan. 27, Meta and materials technology company Corning announced a multi-year agreement valued at up to $6 billion for next-generation optical fiber, cabling and connectivity solutions to support Meta’s advanced data centers across the United States.
Corning said the partnership will underpin expansions at its North Carolina operations, including a major capacity increase at its Hickory optical cable facility, and support a projected 15% to 20% increase in its statewide employment, helping sustain a highly skilled workforce of more than 5,000 people.
Meta framed the agreement as part of its effort to build “next-generation data centers” in the US to power its social platforms and rapidly growing AI workloads.
Synchronized retirement cycles
For stakeholders in the IT asset disposition, electronics recycling and scrap industries, the immediate headlines are capital expenditures and manufacturing, but the downstream implications are fundamentally about future decommissioning volume and complexity.
Each large Meta campus typically houses tens of thousands of servers plus associated networking, storage and power equipment. Across a multi-site footprint, that scales to millions of individual assets that will eventually require retirement, resale or recycling.
While traditional enterprise guidance has often pointed to three- to five-year server refresh cycles, recent disclosures show hyperscalers moving to longer lives: Google has increased the useful life of many servers to six years, and Meta has extended most non-AI servers and network equipment to about five years from four to four-and-a-half years previously.
At the same time, Meta has acknowledged that AI infrastructure will need more frequent updating than its general-purpose fleets because of rapid advances in accelerators and models, even as it tries to balance that against capex discipline.
Those trends matter for downstream planners in two ways.
First, front-loaded investment in AI-optimized capacity creates large, relatively synchronized cohorts of equipment that will reach end of life together when those five- to six-year clocks run out or when first-generation AI platforms are superseded. Rather than a smooth, linear flow of material, ITAD firms and recyclers should anticipate lumpy but very large waves of servers, switches, storage and supporting infrastructure entering secondary markets or scrap streams.
Second, the technology mix inside these sites is shifting toward higher fiber counts, more advanced optical modules and denser, more power-hungry compute nodes, which raises the bar for safe, efficient removal, testing, remarketing and materials recovery, including proper handling of complex optical and high-density power components.
The Corning agreement also underscores how OEMs in adjacent sectors can influence what ultimately arrives in ITAD and recycling facilities. By positioning itself as a domestic, long-term supplier of advanced optical connectivity for Meta’s US data centers, Corning is helping standardize key pieces of the physical network stack, from fiber and cabling to connectivity hardware, across multiple locations.
That kind of standardization can simplify identification, testing and processing for downstream handlers, but it also means rapid generational change in optical and AI hardware could narrow remarketing windows and push a larger share of material into commodity recovery if secondary demand lags new designs.
Sector signals
More broadly, Meta is not alone. Hyperscale peers such as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft have all signaled multi-billion-dollar data center and AI investments, and several have disclosed extended server lifetimes as they rebalance capex and depreciation.
That competitive backdrop reinforces the idea that Meta–Corning is part of a wider AI infrastructure cycle rather than an isolated procurement decision, suggesting that similar optical and networking supply deals are likely across the sector and will collectively shape future ITAD and e-scrap volumes.
Hyperscalers are also using supplier relationships like this one to tell a story about US manufacturing, innovation and “responsible” digital infrastructure, with Meta explicitly highlighting domestic production, job creation and support for local communities in North Carolina.
As that narrative evolves, vendors are likely to face more pressure, from regulators, communities and customers, to demonstrate that equipment is not only produced domestically but also managed responsibly at end of life, including the treatment of e-waste and adherence to environmental regulations governing metals, plastics and hazardous substances.
That creates space for closer partnerships between OEMs, hyperscalers and certified ITAD and recycling providers around structured take-back programs, high-value component harvesting and transparent downstream flows.
For the ITAD and recycling sectors, the Meta–Corning deal is another clear signal that AI-driven data center growth, extended but still finite hardware lifecycles, and rising expectations around environmental performance are converging into a larger, more complex disposition challenge that will emerge in force over the next several years.
