Verizon announced a significant deal worth over $1 billion to connect Google data centers using its dark fiber network, signaling a major push into the AI market. This partnership is the first of several anticipated AI-related ventures for the telecom company.

As part of its new "AI Connect" initiative, Verizon is also repurposing its central offices into smaller data centers. These facilities will be optimized to support AI inference workloads, which require ultra-low latency for applications like robotics, autonomous driving, and remote surgery. This strategy aims to bring AI capabilities closer to the edge.

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman highlighted the exploding demand for data center connectivity and the parallel need to power inference models at the edge. The company expects to announce additional multi-billion dollar AI deals by year-end, underscoring its commitment to capitalizing on the growing AI infrastructure market.