Artificial intelligence has created one of the largest infrastructure investment cycles in history. Most attention has gone to GPUs, data centers, and electricity. Nvidia provides the processors. Hyperscalers build the computing campuses. Utilities search for enough generation and grid capacity to power them.
Connectivity has received far less attention, but it is only a matter of time until it gets full focus.
For example, Verizon has signed an agreement worth well above $1 billion to provide Google with dark fiber across several data center routes. The company expects to announce additional contracts before the end of 2026, representing several billion dollars of revenue over the following years. Verizon will use existing fiber where possible and construct new routes where necessary. It can provide either dark fiber or managed, lit capacity, depending on what the customer wants.
The financial contribution will start in 2027. One contract will not transform a company the size of Verizon. Its quarterly revenue is approximately $34 billion, so even a $1 billion agreement spread across several years remains small relative to the group; however, the strategic signal is important.
Google already operates one of the most advanced private networks in the world. Its infrastructure spans more than two million miles of lit fiber, 33 subsea cable investments, more than 200 network edge locations, and thousands of content delivery sites. Yet Google still needs Verizon to provide additional routes.
The companies building the largest AI brains cannot build every nerve themselves, as the pace is too fast.
AI is changing the geography and economics of networks
Traditional telecom networks were largely designed around people.
Mobile networks connect phones, Broadband networks connect homes, and enterprise networks connect offices. Internet backbones move traffic from users toward websites, cloud platforms, and content delivery locations. AI infrastructure creates a different traffic pattern.
Large training clusters contain tens of thousands of accelerators working together. Most traffic inside these clusters remains within the data center and is handled by specialized switches, optical links, and networking systems supplied by companies such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Arista. Telcos have a limited role inside that environment.
However, the telco opportunity begins when data needs to leave the campus.
Models must be copied between regions; training datasets must be moved from storage locations to computing clusters; companies need private connections to cloud platforms; AI applications must retrieve enterprise information stored across different data centers. Inference results must reach factories, vehicles, hospitals, stores, offices, and consumers.
AI therefore requires two different networks.
The first connects processors inside the brain. The second connects different brains with the outside world, and Telcos have a much stronger position in the second.