The American telecommunications company Lumen Technologies, which, among other things, provides secure connections for data centers, received new orders worth $5 billion. According to Datacenter Dynamics, the telecom provider attributes this success primarily to the growing popularity of AI. Lumen’s share price rose more than 90% on the back of this news. In addition, the company announced active negotiations with customers, providing for another $7 billion in sales.
Over the next five years, the operator intends to more than double the length of its long-distance networks. The company emphasizes that the AI-driven economy is changing business operations, and enterprises recognize the need for powerful network infrastructure to manage unprecedented data flows.
According to Lumen, partners are turning to the company because it already has the infrastructure and large-scale network suitable for AI. This is just the beginning and opens up great opportunities for Lumen. All this should lead to one of the “largest expansions of the Internet” in its entire existence.
Last month, Microsoft ordered a Private Connectivity Fabric (PCF) solution from Lumen for its data centers – Lumen’s fiber optics and its digital services are used to create custom network solutions. At the same time, Lumen, for its part, is integrating more closely with the Microsoft infrastructure, transferring some of the loads to the Azure cloud. Lumen is currently focused primarily on developing terrestrial cable infrastructure in North America. At the same time, most hyperscalers have long been investing in their own cable systems, but usually we are talking about laying underwater Internet highways.