Verizon touts $1B dark fiber deal for Google data centers as first of many
Verizon touts $1B dark fiber deal for Google data centers as first of many
Verizon 宣布与谷歌达成 10 亿美元暗光纤协议，并称这只是系列合作的开端
Verizon is seeking to tap into Silicon Valley’s AI spending in a big way. The telecom giant revealed a deal worth more than $1 billion to link Google data centers using Verizon’s dark fiber routes—and it’s also tearing copper wiring out of central offices as it converts them into small data centers suitable for supporting AI inference workloads.
Verizon 正寻求大规模挖掘硅谷在人工智能领域的支出。这家电信巨头披露了一项价值超过 10 亿美元的协议，旨在利用其暗光纤线路连接谷歌的数据中心。同时，该公司正在拆除中心机房内的铜线，将其改造为适合支持 AI 推理工作负载的小型数据中心。
The telecom company publicly disclosed the Google partnership and data center conversion efforts as part of a new “AI Connect” business initiative during an earnings conference call covering the second quarter of 2026. Verizon also expects to announce additional AI-related deals by the end of the year that would be “worth multiple billions of dollars in revenue over the next several years,” said Dan Schulman, CEO of Verizon Communications, during the earnings call.
在 2026 年第二季度财报电话会议上，Verizon 公开披露了与谷歌的合作关系以及数据中心改造计划，作为其全新“AI Connect”业务倡议的一部分。Verizon 通信公司首席执行官 Dan Schulman 在会上表示，预计到今年年底还将宣布更多与 AI 相关的交易，这些交易“在未来几年内将带来数十亿美元的收入”。
“Now it really is about, ‘how do you connect data center to data center to assure that you can optimize to maximize the ever-exploding need for compute?’” Schulman said. “And while that data center connectivity demand is exploding, there’s an equal amount of desire and demand to power inference models and applications that need ultra-low latency, like robotics or remote surgery, autonomous driving, and move that out into the edge, as opposed to these big, massive data centers.”
“现在的核心问题是，‘如何连接各个数据中心，以确保能够优化并最大化日益激增的计算需求？’”Schulman 说道，“在数据中心连接需求爆炸式增长的同时，市场对于支持推理模型和需要超低延迟的应用（如机器人、远程手术、自动驾驶）也有着同样强烈的需求。我们需要将这些能力推向边缘，而不是仅仅依赖那些大型数据中心。”
Beyond repurposing dark fiber for hyperscalers’ AI data centers, Verizon is in the early stages of retrofitting some of its own central offices—locations that house the physical equipment for Internet and mobile networks—to become small data centers. Such “remote data centers” aim to support “inference edge computing” with minimal data latency for customers’ deployments of AI-driven services, such as autonomous robotaxi fleets or robotics applications, according to Schulman.
除了将暗光纤重新用于超大规模云厂商的 AI 数据中心外，Verizon 还处于改造其部分中心机房（即存放互联网和移动网络物理设备的场所）的早期阶段，旨在将其转变为小型数据中心。据 Schulman 介绍，这些“远程数据中心”旨在为客户部署 AI 驱动的服务（如自动驾驶出租车车队或机器人应用）提供支持，通过“推理边缘计算”实现极低的数据延迟。
“We did a small trial on that and sold out capability in 24 hours,” Schulman said during the earnings call. “So we’re seeing a large demand for that as well.”
“我们对此进行了一次小规模试验，并在 24 小时内就售罄了相关容量，”Schulman 在财报电话会议上表示，“因此，我们看到了这方面同样存在巨大的需求。”
The telecom company had already been removing copper wiring from central offices and upgrading them with fiber-optic technology, even before looking to convert some offices into AI infrastructure for edge computing. That comes as Verizon continues retiring its legacy copper network in favor of faster and more power-efficient fiber-optic cables for broadband services.
早在考虑将部分机房改造为边缘计算 AI 基础设施之前，Verizon 就已经在拆除中心机房的铜线并升级为光纤技术。这是 Verizon 持续淘汰传统铜缆网络，转而采用速度更快、能效更高的光纤电缆以提供宽带服务战略的一部分。
Verizon also significantly grew its fiber network after finalizing a $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications at the start of 2026, which expanded Verizon’s fiber footprint from 15 states to 31 states along with Washington, DC. So selling some unused dark fiber capacity to Google and other AI-focused tech companies could help recoup some of those acquisition costs.
2026 年初，Verizon 以 200 亿美元完成了对 Frontier Communications 的收购，这使其光纤网络规模显著扩大，覆盖范围从 15 个州扩展至 31 个州及华盛顿特区。因此，将部分闲置的暗光纤容量出售给谷歌及其他专注于 AI 的科技公司，有助于收回部分收购成本。
Verizon has also been cutting jobs even after laying off 13,000 workers at the end of 2025, leaving a workforce of just under 90,000 employees at the end of last year. Most recently, the company transferred 274 retail stores to franchise owners along with 2,500 employees and cut another 500 positions within its own corporate structure.
尽管在 2025 年底裁员 1.3 万人，使去年年底的员工总数降至 9 万人以下，Verizon 仍在继续裁员。最近，该公司将 274 家零售店转让给特许经营商，涉及 2500 名员工，并在其企业架构内又削减了 500 个职位。
The telecom company expects its AI Connect deals to “begin to impact our revenues and margins beginning next year and grow substantially over the next five to 10 years,” Schulman said in response to a question during the earnings call. That would come on top of Verizon’s core mobility and broadband services that saw record second-quarter results this year.
在财报电话会议回答提问时，Schulman 表示，公司预计其 AI Connect 交易将“从明年开始影响我们的收入和利润率，并在未来 5 到 10 年内实现大幅增长”。这将成为 Verizon 核心移动和宽带业务之外的又一增长点，而这两项核心业务在今年第二季度均创下了历史新高。