According to DCD, Verizon Business has added Amazon Web Services as its latest partner for the Verizon AI Connect product that launched back in January. The deal involves Verizon building new long-haul, high-capacity fiber pathways specifically to connect AWS data center locations. This builds on Verizon’s existing partnerships with Google Cloud and Meta, who were already using the AI Connect offering for their AI workloads. Verizon’s SVP Scott Lawrence emphasized that AI demands a network to match its innovation potential, while AWS VP Prasad Kalyanaraman highlighted the importance of high-performance connections for reliable AI applications. The announcement comes as Verizon’s new CEO Dan Schulman recently called for a “full reboot” at the carrier and emphasized driving AI adoption for cost efficiency savings.
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The AI networking arms race
Here’s the thing about AI infrastructure – everyone’s focused on the chips and data centers, but the networking between them is becoming just as critical. Generative AI workloads aren’t just computationally intensive, they’re data movement monsters. We’re talking about models that need to shuttle terabytes between GPUs, and if the network can’t keep up, you’ve got expensive silicon sitting idle.
This Verizon-AWS partnership isn’t happening in a vacuum. Basically, we’re seeing a land grab for high-performance networking capacity that can handle AI’s unique demands. Verizon’s playing this smart by leveraging their existing fiber assets and data center real estate. They’re essentially creating dedicated AI highways between major cloud providers.
What this means for developers
For developers building AI applications, this kind of infrastructure partnership could actually make a noticeable difference. Ever trained a large model and hit network bottlenecks? It’s frustrating. More reliable, high-capacity connections mean less time waiting for data transfers and more consistent training performance.
But here’s the real question – will these improvements actually trickle down to smaller teams and startups, or will they primarily benefit the big players? AWS and other cloud providers tend to roll out these infrastructure upgrades across their entire customer base, but the premium performance might come at a premium price.
The timing is interesting too. Verizon’s new CEO pushing AI adoption internally while simultaneously building out AI infrastructure for others. It suggests they see networking as their competitive edge in the AI gold rush. And honestly, they might be right – everyone needs to move data, and not everyone has nationwide fiber networks.
