Microsoft announced a new partnership with Lumen to help expand its network capacity

Microsoft continues to expand its generative AI services like Copilot and others for businesses, organizations, education customers, and general consumers. As a result, it is also building more data centers to accommodate the expected demand for AI services.

However, with the expansions of data servers by Microsoft, there's also the need to connect them to better networks. Today, Microsoft revealed it has entered into a new partnership with noted network systems provider Lumen Technologies to help expand both the capacity and the capability of those networks.

In a press release today, Microsoft said that Lumen's Lumen’s Private Connectivity Fabric will help the company make connections to its growing number of data centers. Lumen offers a custom network that can offer Microsoft dedicated fiber networks that are already in place, along with new fiber connections on both existing and new network routes.

The press release added:

This AI-ready infrastructure will strengthen the connectivity capabilities between Microsoft’s datacenters by providing the network capacity, performance, stability and speed that customers need as data demands increase.

While Microsoft plans to use Lumen's fiber network for its new and upcoming data centers, Lumen will use a number of Microsoft's software and online services for its employees. That includes incorporating services like Azure along with the company's Entra employee identity and security services.

The press release did not state how long this new partnership between Microsoft and Lumen will last. It also didn't reveal any financial disclosure for this new deal. However, the announcement does claim that the use of Microsoft's services by Lumen will result in that company increasing its cash flow by over $20 million over the next year.

Lumen was actually first formed in 1930 and has gone through a number of incarnations, as well as a number of different names, including Century Telephone Enterprise, CenturyLink, and finally with Lumen Technologies in 2020.