Lumen and Meta enter AI network pact

Oct. 22, 2024
Meta sets a long-term network capacity expansion course to address AI.

Lumen has signed a new network capacity deal with Meta—one that will not only increase Meta's network capacity and drive its AI ambitions but also show the growing interest hyperscale providers have in dedicated high-speed bandwidth products.

Leveraging Lumen’s Private Connectivity Fabric, the expanded network will provide dedicated interconnection for Meta's infrastructure.

This work with Meta comes as the interest in AI continues to spike.

The Lumen partnership provides Meta with increased flexibility through secure on-demand bandwidth to support its complex computing needs and serve its customer base.

Lumen’s Internet On‑Demand service allows customers like Meta to deploy dedicated internet connectivity up to 10 Gbps over multi-service ports for fast Networking‑as‑a‑Service by the hour, without paying standard monthly rates, regardless of how the service is used.

With Lumen, we twe canuse this advanced network to provide scale and reliability for seamless experiences," said Alex-Handrah Aimé, director of Meta's Network Investments.

Meta is hardly alone. Other hyperscalers like Microsoft are leveraging Lumen’s fiber and network platforms.

Lumen previously signed an agreement with Microsoft to implement the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform, which the company reports will drive its digital transformation. Microsoft will also implement Lumen’s custom network, Private Connectivity Fabric, to expand its capacity and capability to meet rising data center demands.

Focus on fiber

Fiber connectivity is a key element of Lumen’s work with Meta and Microsoft.

Lumen offers dedicated access to existing fiber and new routes between data centers.

In August, Lumen signed a significant fiber cable deal with Corning. The deal will serve Lumen’s U.S. intercity network, which includes diverse routes to more than 50 major cities nationwide.

The agreement, Lumen’s largest cable purchase, will equip Lumen to meet the network infrastructure needs of major data center operators for years to come, including Microsoft, which announced last week that it’s investing with Lumen to support the rising demand for its data centers.  

Lumen said continuously upgrading its infrastructure using a multi-conduit system allows for rapidly deploying the latest fiber technology. 

Data center rising

Providing fiber connectivity to hyperscalers like Meta and Microsoft comes at a time when the data center market continues to expand.

A recent Synergy Research report revealed that the number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers increased to 992 at the end of 2023 and passed the thousand mark in early 2024.

Synergy forecasts that total hyperscale data center capacity will double again in the next four years. 

The research firm estimates that 120-130 additional hyperscale data centers will go live yearly.

Further, capacity growth will be increasingly driven by the even larger scale of those newly opened data centers, with generative AI technology being a prime reason for that increased scale.

Unsurprisingly, the major cloud providers–Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—have the most significant data center footprints. In addition to having a large data center footprint in their home US market, each of these players also has multiple data centers in many other countries worldwide. These three players, in aggregate, account for 60% of all hyperscale data center capacity. 

For related articles, visit the Data Center Topic Center.
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About the Author

Sean Buckley

Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.

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