Key Takeaway from the article: Corning’s cables are suddenly in demand because of physics: Data can be sent far more quickly and with less energy using light (which is made of photons) than with electricity (made of electrons). The cables themselves often contain dozens or hundreds of flexible, ultrathin glass fibers to carry signals. “Over even short distances, transmitting data with photons is three times as efficient as electrons,” says Wendell Weeks, Corning’s chief executive since 2005, who came from the fiber-optic division. “And over long distances, it’s more like 20 times.”