AT&T has entered into a major fiber supply deal with Corning as the telecom giant prepares its network for growing data demand and the increasing bandwidth needs of artificial intelligence.

Corning Chairman, CEO and President Wendell Weeks and AT&T Chairman and CEO John Stankey joined FOX Business’ Liz Claman on “The Claman Countdown” to discuss the companies’ more than $3 billion purchase agreement and the future of fiber infrastructure.

Stankey said AT&T is seeing ever-increasing data demand, including stronger growth in traffic moving from customers back into the network. He said the shift makes fiber increasingly important because it can carry the same amount of data upstream and downstream.

“And that’s a bet for the future, and it’s a bet for being able to… meet the needs of AI moving forward,” Stankey said.

The agreement is expected to help AT&T push beyond its goal of reaching more than 60 million total fiber locations by the end of 2030, while giving the company more certainty around supply and pricing.

“And this is actually going to get us over that 60 million hump over the next five years. That’s why we’re doing the deal. We get really stable pricing with it. We get stable supplies so we know we can get the objective done,” Stankey said.

For Corning, the deal comes as its North Carolina operations expand to meet long-term customer demand. Weeks said the company has more than 5,000 employees in the state and expects that workforce to grow dramatically in the coming years.

Weeks also said Corning has visibility into committed demand stretching over multiple years as fiber becomes a critical piece of the broader infrastructure buildout.

“So what we’re doing is we are building both the capacity and the capability to meet the demand for our committed customers,” Weeks said.