Optical fiber orders are booming. How does China achieve over half of the global shipments?
Recently, the optical fiber sector has been heating up continuously in the capital market, with the concept remaining highly popular, and many related stocks have generally risen.
Driven by the explosive demand for AI computing power and the reconstruction of the global supply chain, the optical fiber and cable industry is entering a prosperous cycle of "simultaneous increase in volume and price".
Meanwhile, the policy side is also continuously increasing its support. Currently, the "National Integrated Computing Power Network" has been included in the national major projects, and the computing power infrastructure is entering a systematic construction cycle.
Stimulated by market demand and prices, the global market's shipment volume has subsequently soared. Last year, China's optical fiber shipment volume exceeded half of the global total, and this year's monthly export volume of optical fiber and cable is also worthy of attention. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs of China, in March this year, China's export value of optical fiber and cable was 245 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 263.84%. The average export price of optical fiber and cable was 76.11 US dollars per kilogram, a year-on-year increase of 204.32%.
Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee on Information and Communication Economics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out in an interview that the unexpected investment in AI infrastructure has driven the unexpected price increase of optical fiber products. Chinese optical fiber enterprises have firmly grasped the opportunity of this large cycle of AI infrastructure investment and achieved unexpected performance improvement through rapid production increase, ultimately achieving a surge in orders.
Diverse Demands in the Intelligent Computing Scenario
Against the background of the accelerated construction of computing power infrastructure, optical fiber and cable are evolving from traditional communication transmission media to key components for high-density and low-latency interconnection inside intelligent computing centers.
According to the industry research of Cailian Press reporters, different from traditional telecommunications networks, current intelligent computing centers have more diverse requirements for optical fibers: they need to withstand small-radius bending in a crowded cabinet environment and achieve extremely high-density data transmission in a limited space.
In response to this scenario, G.657 bend-insensitive optical fiber has become a common solution for high-density wiring.
More technologically representative is multi-core optical fiber. Different from ordinary single-core optical fibers, multi-core optical fibers integrate multiple independent transmission channels within the same cladding, which can double the transmission capacity. According to Zhongtian Technology's disclosure, its multi-core optical fiber can currently achieve a maximum 7-fold increase in capacity.
In addition, for backbone projects such as the "East-West Computing" initiative, G.654.E ultra-low loss optical fibers are being laid on a large scale, and major domestic optical fiber manufacturers have all regarded it as one of the core solutions for backbone network upgrades.
Simultaneous Increase in Volume and Price
The rapid iteration of technology is directly reflected in the terminal market as an explosion in demand and an increase in product prices.
"There is a very clear gap in production capacity in the North American market, and our production capacity in China is a key support direction." A senior executive of Zhongtian Technology revealed to Cailian Press reporters.
This judgment is based on evidence.
In May 2026, NVIDIA and Corning, a century-old optical fiber giant, announced a multi-year strategic cooperation, planning to invest billions of dollars to promote the expansion of optical connection manufacturing capacity. Previously, Meta had signed a long-term cable agreement worth up to 6 billion US dollars with Corning.
The explosion in the global market is rewriting the supply-demand pattern of optical fiber and cable. According to CRU statistics, the year-on-year growth rate of the demand for optical fiber and cable in global data centers in 2025 was as high as 75.9%.
However, the supply side is facing rigid constraints - the expansion cycle of optical fiber preforms is as long as 1.5 to 2 years, and it is difficult to quickly release production capacity in the short term.
CRU predicts that the supply-demand gap rate of global optical fiber and cable in 2026 will be about 16.4%, which provides a solid supply-demand fundamental support for the industry's upward cycle.
Transmitted to the domestic market, Zhongtian Technology revealed that the price of optical fiber and cable has increased significantly.
The capital market has responded enthusiastically to this trend, and the index of the optical fiber and cable sector has increased significantly this year.
"This is a long-term track." Zhongtian Technology believes that the explosion of North American data centers is just a starting point, and the construction wave of data centers in the Middle East and China is taking over.
Policy Support
While the industrial demand is skyrocketing, the intensive efforts on the policy side have injected stronger certainty into this track.
In 2026, "coordination between computing and power" was written into the government work report for the first time.
At the beginning of this month, the National Energy Administration, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the National Data Administration, jointly issued the "Action Plan for Promoting the Two-way Empowerment of Artificial Intelligence and Energy", clearly stating that by 2027, a safe, green, and economical energy security system will be initially established, and by 2030, the clean energy supply guarantee capacity of artificial intelligence computing power facilities will reach the world's leading level.
The core logic of this policy is to transform the industrial advantages of the power system into the competitive advantages of the digital economy.
Liu Liehong, the director of the National Data Administration, revealed at the 9th Digital China Construction Summit at the end of April that the construction of the "National Integrated Computing Power Network" has been included in the 109 major projects of the 15th Five-Year Plan. As of the end of March 2026, the total scale of national intelligent computing power has reached 1.88 million PFLOPS (FP16), of which the eight national hub nodes account for more than 80%.
Driven by national strategies such as the "East-West Computing" initiative and "coordination between computing and power", the computing power infrastructure is entering a systematic construction cycle.
Statistics from the China IDC Circle show that from April to mid-May 2026, there were at least 67 domestic computing power-related bidding and winning projects worth over 100 million yuan, covering multiple key links such as the procurement of domestic servers, the construction of GPU clusters, and the EPC of intelligent computing centers. The computing power industry is moving from the "equipment procurement cycle" to the "infrastructure system cycle".
For the optical fiber and cable industry, this means a broader market space. A research report from an institution clearly points out that optical fiber and cable have gone beyond the scope of ordinary industrial products and "have become the core strategic resources that determine a country's scientific and technological competitiveness and digital sovereignty, and are the 'heavy weapons of a great power' in the computing power era."
China's Global Position in the Industrial Chain
In terms of production capacity, China accounts for more than half of the global optical fiber production capacity. According to CRU statistics, in 2025, China's optical fiber shipment volume accounted for about 56.3% of the global total.
In terms of shipment volume, China's optical fiber manufacturing capacity ranks first in the world. Taking several leading enterprises as examples: In 2025, the overseas revenue of Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company outside the Chinese mainland reached 6.034 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.66%, accounting for 42.33% of its total revenue; the overseas revenue of Hengtong Optic-Electric Co., Ltd. last year exceeded 14.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.85%, and the overseas revenue accounted for about 22% of its total revenue.
The customers of these enterprises include not only the three major domestic telecommunications operators, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei Cloud, and the State Grid, but also well-known global communication enterprises such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nokia.
In terms of technology, in the field of optical fiber preforms, which is known as the "pearl on the crown" of the optical fiber industry, Chinese enterprises have achieved self-control. Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company is the only enterprise in the world that simultaneously masters the three mainstream preform preparation processes.
In March 2026, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company optimized the minimum attenuation value of its self-developed hollow-core optical fiber to 0.040 dB/km, once again breaking the world record it held.
Cailian Press reporters learned that Zhongtian Technology's hollow-core optical fiber has been applied in China Telecom, UAE telecom operators, and data center construction, and it is one of the few enterprises in the industry capable of commercial application.
Yesterday, Zhongtian Technology issued an announcement that its special optical fiber and cable products for AI computing power are being accelerated for implementation. Among them, the much-anticipated multi-core optical fiber has achieved stable mass production, with a 7-fold increase in single-fiber capacity.
This article is from the WeChat official account Cailian Press, author: Guo Songqiao. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.