Verizon touts $1B dark fiber deal for Google data centers as first of many

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. The telecom company publicly disclosed the Google partnership and data center conversion efforts as part of a new “AI Connect” business initiative durin