Verizon has announced a deal worth more than $1 billion to lease "dark fibre" routes to Google for linking data centres, part of a new "AI Connect" initiative aimed at capturing more of the AI infrastructure spending boom. The telecom giant says this is just the first of several such agreements, with additional deals expected by the end of 2026 worth "multiple billions of dollars" in revenue over the coming years, as it also converts old copper telephone exchanges into small data centres for AI inference work.

Verizon's dark fibre network expanded significantly after it completed a $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications in early 2026, growing its fibre footprint from 15 to 31 US states plus Washington DC, and selling spare capacity to firms like Google could help offset that cost. CEO Dan Schulman said the company is retrofitting central offices into "remote data centres" to support low-latency AI applications such as robotics and autonomous driving, noting a recent small trial sold out its capacity within 24 hours; Verizon expects the AI Connect push to start affecting revenue and margins from 2027, even as the firm continues cutting jobs, including 13,000 layoffs at the end of 2025.