On September 24, Corning signed an agreement with Chongqing Liangjiang New District to invest in a new Gorilla Glass project in the Water and Soil New City of Liangjiang New District.
It is understood that Corning and Chongqing have cooperated as early as 2015, and have invested in the construction of the display glass substrate back-end processing project, the motherboard distribution center project, and the display glass substrate front-end furnace project. The signing of this project will be the first time that Corning's Gorilla Glass project has settled in mainland China.
Gorilla Glass is an environmentally friendly aluminum-silicon tempered glass, which is mainly used in mobile device screens such as smartphones, tablets, and notebooks that require high scratch resistance. In July 2020, Corning announced the launch of the seventh-generation "Gorilla Glass", which is designed for future smartphones. Corning promised to greatly improve the drop and scratch resistance of smartphones. As of now, Corning Gorilla Glass has been used in more than 8 billion devices from more than 45 well-known brands worldwide.
At present, the share of China's panel substrates is constantly increasing. From the survey data of the super-generation panel, China's share of global panel exports is also increasing. Affected by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many consumers use limited resources for home entertainment, which has further increased the demand for large-size screens. Not only in the home, but also in public displays, the growth rate is also very fast. Zhang Zheng said that Corning has closely followed customers to help support their needs.
Prior to this, on June 18, Corning Display also announced the expansion of its display glass processing plant in Chongqing Liangjiang New District. Corning will add 8.5-generation and above display glass substrate hot-end process capabilities in Chongqing. The project is expected to be officially put into production in 2023. Corning said the investment will enable Corning to better serve local customers through local production and redeploy other facilities to meet the growing demand in mobile consumer electronics and automotive applications.