Zayo Levels Up Its AI-Ready Infrastructure with New Routes and 100% 400G Enablement
With these industry-leading milestones and major Q2 upgrades, Zayo is delivering the backbone for the AI- and bandwidth-driven future
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DENVER — Zayo, a leading global communications infrastructure provider, today announced major updates to its AI-ready infrastructure across North America, including breaking ground on three of its new purpose-built-for-AI long-haul dark fiber routes and the 100% 400G enablement of its North American core network.
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Delivering the Backbone for AI with Strategic Fiber Buildouts
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Increased long-haul fiber infrastructure is essential to support rapidly growing AI demand. Zayo recently broke ground on the first three routes purpose-built to support this need. Guided by in-depth market modeling, these builds are designed not just for today's needs, but for where AI demand is headed next.
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Chicago to Columbus: Zayo is advancing construction on a 385-mile, low-latency fiber route between Chicago and Columbus, designed to support high-throughput, AI-driven workloads. With connectivity to all major data centers in both metros, the route strengthens a critical corridor between two of the nation's top hyperscale markets.
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Chicago to Minneapolis: Zayo is constructing a brand-new 521-mile dark fiber route linking key AI data center hubs of Chicago and Minneapolis. Engineered for scale, the route features ultra-high fiber counts and direct connections to Zayo's AI-optimized corridors, including Chicago to Columbus and Zayo's SPREAD networks.
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Phoenix to Tucson: Zayo is building a 123-mile high-capacity fiber route between Phoenix and Tucson, connecting key data centers in one of the Southwest's fastest-growing AI corridors. The route will directly connect into three future builds designed to meet customers' AI demands, including Tucson to El Paso; El Paso to Dallas; and El Paso to Mexico.
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These builds are part of Zayo's multi-year strategy to deliver the long-haul fiber infrastructure needed for the next generation of AI. In January, Zayo committed to constructing over 5,000 new route miles of long-haul fiber as AI demand is expected to grow 2-6X by 2030.
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'AI requires scale at an order of magnitude greater than any technology we've seen before,' said Bill Long, Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Zayo. 'As the only provider to build long-haul infrastructure at scale in the last decade, Zayo is uniquely positioned to deliver on this need in a way that no one else in the market can. We're not just building the infrastructure AI requires today, we're powering connectivity between these key AI corridors, and the communities along the way, for years to come.'
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Enabling the 400G Era
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In Q2, Zayo completed the full 400G upgrade of its North American core network, delivering the high-capacity, low-latency infrastructure that modern organizations now depend on.
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As demand for data-intensive technologies like generative AI, real-time analytics, and cloud-native applications explodes, 400G has become the new performance baseline. Last year, 400G wavelengths represented the largest share of total terabits purchased, outpacing both 10G and 100G solutions.
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'As next-gen technologies demand more and more bandwidth, 400G connectivity is now the standard for high-growth businesses,' said Troy Lupe, Chief Network Officer at Zayo. 'With our core network now fully 400G enabled, Zayo is leading the movement toward higher-capacity solutions, enabling our customers to support the bandwidth-intensive demands of AI, cloud computing, real-time analytics, and any other innovation to come next.'
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Next-Level Infrastructure Enhancements
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Additional enhancements to Zayo's infrastructure and capabilities in Q2 include:
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Enhanced Optical Capacity: Added 393.6 terabits (Tb) of optical capacity, strengthening the network's ability to handle massive volumes of data at high speeds and low latency. The expansion also added 10 additional 400G-enabled POPs to Zayo's network.
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Expanded Fiber Monitoring: Expanded its fiber monitoring capabilities to over 14K route miles in total. These routes deliver consistent, optimized performance with a network that can quickly detect and resolve issues.
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IP Core Upgrades: Expanded its IP network with the deployment of six new IP Points of Presence (PoPs), including two new 400G-enabled PoPs in Montreal and Chicago—a key AI hub.
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New Quick Connect Data Centers: Introduced 25 new Quick Connect Data Centers, bringing its total to over 100 Quick Connect facilities. Zayo's Quick Connect Data Centers enable turn-up of IP and Ethernet services within just 10 days, providing essential scale and agility for network connectivity services.
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About Zayo
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For more than 17 years, Zayo has empowered some of the world's largest and most innovative companies to connect what's next for their business. The Zayo group of companies connects 400 global markets with future-ready networks that span over 19.1 million fiber miles and 147,000 route miles. Zayo's tailored connectivity solutions and managed services enable carriers, cloud providers, data centers, schools, and enterprises to deliver exceptional experiences, from core to cloud to edge. Discover how Zayo connects what's next at www.zayo.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
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