Networking the AI economy – Verizon on global fiber, metro access, private 5G

Verizon Business is pitching itself as the wiring behind the AI boom, outlining at MWC how it plans to move data reliably between cloud models and the physical world. The company says global backbone fiber, dense metro access, and private 5G networks are the core pieces needed to connect AI training and inference in the cloud to devices, factories, and other on-the-ground systems.

Verizon describes this as a shift to a more programmable, high-capacity network running from large data centers out to the edge. The goal is to handle heavier AI traffic without choking local networks, and to give enterprises more control over where and how their AI workloads run. Its message to telcos and business customers is that these infrastructure bets will decide who can turn AI software into reliable, real-world services.