Meta Platforms’ Threads app has reached 500 million monthly active users, marking a significant milestone for the platform as it moves to deepen engagement through a suite of new community tools and personalised feed controls.

The social media giant stated the growth has been driven largely by communities, which are groups of users sharing interests spanning books, basketball, parenting, and music.

To mark the milestone, Meta is graduating its communities feature out of beta and launching a series of updates aimed at making those groups more visible and easier to navigate.

The communities hub is being added to the main menu to the left of the feed, making it easier for users to find and switch between groups.

Communities will also get their own distinct icons to make them more recognisable across the platform, alongside a progress indicator showing users how close a topic is to achieving full community status and what they can do to help it get there.

Champion recognition is being expanded to more users across communities, with local communities launching in Japan, Korea and Taiwan with native-language tags.

Meta stated Live Chats will expand to more communities in the coming weeks, with co-hosting and the ability to quote moments directly to a user’s feed.

Your Algo
Alongside the community updates, Meta is introducing Your Algo, a new personal feed setting which builds on the Dear Algo feature launched in February.

While Dear Algo allowed users to tell the Threads algorithm what they wanted to see more or less of, Your Algo adds a private layer of control, letting users filter specific topics from their feed and set how long a request lasts across one, three or seven days. Both tools will be manageable from a single hub.

Your Algo rolled out in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Meta stated the updates are the beginning of continued investment in the platform based on user feedback.

It launched Threads in July 2023 in a bid to compete against Elon Musk-owned X.

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Nokia highlighted a major expansion of its advanced test and packaging operations in the US state of Pennsylvania, in a move designed to scale production of optical networking technologies which underpin AI infrastructure.

The Finnish vendor stated the investment will increase the facility’s production capacity by up to 10 times its current level, with the extended capability expected to be commercially available by the end of Q3.

Nokia said the expansion in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is expected to nearly double the workforce there to more than 500 across engineering, manufacturing and R&D, with a projected economic impact of more than $500 million over the next five years.

It noted the Allentown site is one of only a few facilities in the US providing advanced test and packaging of photonic chips into optical modules for use in AI and telecoms infrastructure.

Nokia stated less than 2% of global semiconductor advanced test and packaging currently takes place in the US, making domestic capacity a strategic priority. The company claimed its optical technologies can reduce energy usage in AI communications by as much as 75%.

The expansion is part of Nokia’s multi-year plan to invest $4 billion in research and manufacturing in the US for AI-ready network connectivity.

The Allentown project involves approximately $30 million in total investment, including around $4 million in assistance from the state of Pennsylvania and approximately $10 million in federal CHIPS and Science Act tax credit.

Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said the “AI supercycle” is fundamentally reshaping network and infrastructure requirements and noted the Allentown expansion was a direct investment in that future.

“It also reflects the strong partnership between Nokia, the United States, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to support advanced manufacturing, create jobs, and strengthen US technology leadership and global competitiveness,” he said.

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