Apple announced Friday that it was giving $200 million to Corning, which makes the tough, scratch-resistant face for every iPhone
and iPad, to support the glass maker’s efforts to develop and build more sophisticated products at its factory in Harrodsburg, Ky.
Corning has made the glass for every iPhone since the original 10 years ago.
Apple’s investment, the first from the technology giant’s $1 billion fund to promote advanced manufacturing in the United States, will help Corning develop thinner, more versatile glass for iPhones as well as other product lines
that Apple is exploring, such as screens for self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses.
Apple Gives Corning $200 Million to Invent Better Phone Glass -
By VINDU GOELMAY 12, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is seeding the next generation of American-made glass for its iPhones
and iPads, and its investments may have the side benefit of helping the company win favor in Washington.
“They are literally thinking about stuff you and I aren’t thinking about yet.”
The investment is also a good-will gesture toward Republicans, including President Trump, who has criticized Apple for building its iPhones in China,
and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky.
Apple has accumulated more cash than any other company in the United States — $257 billion as of April 1 —
and virtually all of it is stashed untaxed in foreign bank accounts.