(Source: GSMA) Several top Verizon executives said the operator plans to profit from the sale of computing infrastructure for AI operations. But they declined to provide specifics.
"We’re getting a lot of good orders from hyperscalers either on dark fiber or lit, and we’re going to see that growing. But we have more than that, not just the fiber. It’s the power, space and cooling, which you know is in really high demand. And we have a lot of latent assets in that area," explained Verizon’s Kyle Malady, head of the company’s business division, during the operator’s recent quarterly earnings call .
"So at the moment, we’re putting it together," he added. "We’re figuring out exactly how we’re going to go into this market. It’s a huge market. We can’t cover it all, but there are certain segments we might be better off in than others."
Malady didn’t provide any more details. "We’ll be back to you pretty soon talking to you about it. It’s a great opportunity for us," he said.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg also discussed AI during the call.
"Right now, we see large language models going to the big data centers…" Vestberg said. "As soon as they’re going to be an application that you’re going to use as an enterprise, you’re going to put it much closer for the main reason of the transport cost for privacy, for security, and in some cases, also latency."
He added: "Then you’re going to see a big opportunity for us."
Vestberg also declined to elaborate, promising to "come back a little bit more specific on it."
Other operators have echoed Verizon’s view of the AI opportunity. Executives from companies ranging from T-Mobile to Vodafone have suggested that telecom infrastructure might play a role in the future of AI as consumer and business use of the technology drives AI processing outside of massive data centers and closer to users.A shift to ‘inference’Early investments into advanced AI services have primarily focused on hyperscale companies and data center operators, which have been using massive data sets to train AI language models. Indeed, data center operator Equinix recently unveiled plans […]
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