3M and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced an expanded strategic collaboration that will deploy and scale the company's Expanded Beam Optical (EBO) platform for AWS' data center infrastructure.
The companies expect the collaboration and related investments to support more than 500 jobs, including the creation of more than 100 new roles through 2027 across Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin. These planned roles will support customer co-innovation, technology advancement and supply chain development across 3M's optical networking portfolio and help accelerate industrywide adoption through collaboration with partners.
"AWS' adoption of 3M's EBO platform demonstrates the potential of our optical connectivity technology to meet the performance demands of next-generation data center infrastructure," said Wendy Bauer, Group President of 3M's Transportation and Electronics Business Group. "By combining AWS' infrastructure expertise and scale with 3M's innovation and materials science capabilities, we can accelerate EBO deployment, advance our transformation and strengthen U.S. innovation and investment."
3M expects to contribute nearly $500 million to the U.S. economy through its optical connectivity business, accelerating innovation in optical networking and fiber termination, enabling commercialization at scale and driving adoption across the data center industry.
The collaboration builds on 3M's announcement earlier this year that it will double production capacity at its Menomonie, Wis., manufacturing facility. The company also plans to support U.S. manufacturing partners involved in equipment and production scale-up throughout the supply chain.
