Artificial intelligence is creating immediate revenue opportunities for carriers, particularly in hyperscaler and enterprise markets. As AI workloads move closer to consumption, demand for dark fiber and resilient data center connectivity is accelerating. Rather than viewing AI solely through the lens of infrastructure, carriers have an opportunity to position themselves as strategic enablers, supporting both the physical network layer and the operational needs tied to AI deployment. This shift is especially relevant as enterprises seek scalable, high-performance connectivity to support inference and emerging AI-driven applications.
However, making the business case for AI infrastructure remains a challenge for many organizations. Partnerships are becoming a critical tool for overcoming that hurdle, allowing carriers to collaborate with AI specialists while guiding customers through an increasingly complex and fast-moving landscape. Looking ahead, the evolution toward autonomous networks and smaller-scale AI-as-a-service models could further expand the carrier role. By combining network expertise with real-world deployment experience, providers can help enterprises move beyond experimentation and toward structured, effective AI implementation.
Mitch Wagner:
Where are you seeing the biggest near-term revenue opportunities, enterprises, hyperscalers or consumers, and how are you prioritizing those segments differently?
Alan Jones:
For us, we're multifaceted, we're seeing it across all. But really, hyperscalers is first up. As a fiber provider, dark fiber is definitely a hot topic right now. And then also, our enterprise side, we're seeing a lot of traction there from what's needed from data center connectivity, things like that.
Mitch Wagner:
So how do you see your company's role in the AI value chain evolving, given that most telco leaders still identify primarily as infrastructure providers?
Alan Jones:
I think that's just it, we're trying to break out of that infrastructure provider-only role. So we definitely see, from what I mentioned, dark fiber being our first and one of the main things that's coming to us. But as a technology company and not just a telco provider, we think we also have some other roles to help customers better understand how AI works for them and things like that.
Mitch Wagner:
In a recent survey that we did for an ongoing report, which you participated in, and thank you for that, nearly a third of the executives we interviewed said the biggest barrier to AI growth that they're seeing is making the business case for AI infrastructure. Given that, how are you approaching that challenge?
Alan Jones:
I think for us, it's really partnerships. There is definitely a hurdle there, but there is a lot of demand and a lot of need there. So with the right AI partners, people in the industry that need some help and that we can collaborate with, it's much easier to approach.
Mitch Wagner:
Good. So what do you think is going to define the next era of carrier services?
Alan Jones:
I think as we're seeing all of this connectivity, everything pushing around AI, my view is really the next generation of those services become fully autonomous networks that can really enhance the customer experience.
Mitch Wagner:
So you see AI-as-a-service a possible angle for you going forward?
Alan Jones:
I think AI-as-a-service , and not necessarily where it's maybe in our data center or not necessarily at a large scale, we can let the hyperscalers cover that part. But I think on a smaller scale, there's definitely a lot of things that we're going to be able to help with.
Mitch Wagner:
Good, yeah. So what do you see as the primary obstacles or challenges that your enterprise customers are seeing with AI implementation, and how can you help them with that?
Alan Jones:
So I think one is just it's ever-changing, so having a sounding board and someone that's in the fight with them and rolling out and that has had experience rolling out AI already in some places, I think that's where we can really help our customers. Many of them are delayed or just approaching or they have a very shotgun approach to AI, and bringing some of that structure and some of that understanding of some of the right ways to do AI and some of the things that we've experienced already, I think that's going to go a long way.
Mitch Wagner:
Well, let's leave it there. Thank you for joining us, Alan.
Alan Jones:
All right. Thank you.