Hans Erik Vestberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Verizon, has revealed the company’s AI strategy and focus on fiber.
Verizon is planning capital expenditure (Capex) of $17.5-$18.5 billion in 2025 as compared with $17.1 billion in 2024. Verizon reported operating revenue of $134.8 billion (up 0.6 percent) in 2024.
The AI strategy and fiber plans of Verizon focus on driving innovation, leveraging assets, and meeting the growing demands of the AI ecosystem. Verizon aims to achieve service revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA expansion, and strong free cash flow by accelerating mobility and broadband growth, scaling private networks, and expanding 5G Ultra Wideband and fiber reach.
The company emphasizes operational excellence, financial discipline, and customer experience while executing a capital allocation model that supports business investment, dividend growth, debt reduction, and future share repurchases.
Verizon’s AI strategy
Verizon’s AI strategy is structured around three pillars: enhancing experiences and driving efficiencies, personalizing products and solutions, and connecting to the AI ecosystem. AI-driven tools like FastPath improve customer service efficiency, while Segment of Me personalizes user interactions with tailored offers.
The AI ecosystem connection focuses on leveraging Verizon’s infrastructure, including edge compute and fiber, to address latency, transport cost, and the demands of generative AI. The company introduces Verizon AI Connect to support AI workloads across multi-cloud environments, customer premises, and network edges, emphasizing best-in-class connectivity and edge compute capabilities.
Major players such as Google and Meta have purchased capacity in Verizon’s network with the intent of using it for their AI workloads. Some of these deals are reflected in Verizon’s fourth quarter results and are contributing to the margin improvements.
Verizon is also working with industry players like NVIDIA to reimagine how telco functions can work along with AI workloads. Verizon is starting this development at the far edge in a private network.
Verizon’s fiber strategy
Verizon’s fiber assets, developed over decades, include the 71-city One Fiber buildout and extensive long-haul networks. These provide lit and dark fiber services, edge-to-cloud connectivity, and network programmability, ensuring scalability for the AI-driven future.
The company has thousands of distributed telco facilities with available power, space, and cooling to support real-time AI deployments at the edge. With AI infrastructure investments estimated to exceed $1 trillion over the next decade, Verizon is positioned as a key enabler of secure, high-speed, and flexible connectivity.
Kyle Malady, Chief Executive Officer of Verizon Business Group, says Verizon’s leadership in enterprise connectivity supports the seamless integration of AI applications across industries. Its network of over 16,000 near-net enterprise locations and third-party data center connectivity enhances its ability to address AI market demands. As workloads shift to the edge and data center constraints increase, Verizon’s fiber and programmable networks provide vital solutions. With a significant inventory of undeveloped land and retrofittable facilities, the company can expand its capacity for AI workloads.
Strategic partnerships with industry leaders like NVIDIA and Vultr further reinforce Verizon’s role in enabling AI advancements. These collaborations enhance telco functionality alongside AI workloads and broaden access to GPU-as-a-service capabilities.
With a growing funnel of over $1 billion leveraging its existing infrastructure, Verizon is already contributing to AI-driven margin improvements. The company’s readiness to support the AI ecosystem underscores its vision to unlock financial growth and strengthen its leadership in the evolving technology landscape.
Baburajan Kizhakedath