Information
The community operator says it has secured $5 billion-worth of offers from cloud and tech firms looking for connectivity for his or her AI information centres
Because the demand for generative AI companies soars, world tech giants are racing to deploy the essential information centres that underpin the brand new know-how. The size of their funding has been monumental; in line with a report from GlobalData, funding by the info centre funding by the massive 5 – Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet (Google), and Apple – has risen to $37 billion in 2024, up from $8.8 billion final yr.
All of those new information centres will must be related to nationwide spine fibre networks and this, as evidenced by at the moment’s announcement, can show massively worthwhile for nationwide fibre community operators like Lumen.
Lumen says it has not solely secured $5 billion in new enterprise from main cloud and know-how gamers, however is actively in discussions associated to an additional $7 billion.
Whereas specifics of the offers in query weren’t revealed, they reportedly embody the main contract secured final month with Microsoft to assist the cloud large develop capability for its AI information centres.
Illustation of Lumen’s Personal Connectivity Cloth℠
“The AI economic system is altering enterprise operations, and corporations are recognizing they want highly effective community infrastructure to handle the unprecedented information flows at the moment and the demand sooner or later,” mentioned Kate Johnson, president and CEO, Lumen Applied sciences. “Our companions are turning to us due to our AI-ready infrastructure and expansive community. That is just the start of a big alternative for Lumen, one that can result in one of many largest expansions of the web ever.”
To assist facilitate this surge in demand, Lumen introduced a take care of fibre cable producer Corning final week reserving 10% of the corporate’s manufacturing capability for the following two years.
This, Lumen says, will give them the capability they should “greater than double” their US intercity fibre miles over the following 5 years.
All of this dealmaking has seemingly made Lumen take a better take a look at its personal construction, with the corporate additionally saying at the moment that it’s carving out a brand new Customized Networks division to raised handle its portfolio of personal community companies. These companies embody managed community companies, darkish fibre infrastructure, customized fibre routes, and safe connections for information centres.
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