Behind the $1B Fiber Deal: Verizon's Bet on AI Infrastructure and Its Odds of Success

Verizon has struck a dark fiber deal worth over $1 billion with Google to connect its AI data centers. Meanwhile, Google's capital expenditure figures for Q2 2026 are about to be released. Put these two sets of numbers together, and they signal something clear: the arms race in AI infrastructure is shifting deeply from the chip layer to the network layer.