AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches bluntly noted that data center connectivity is reliant on the carrier’s network assets, with a particular reliance on AT&T’s fiber-based architecture to connect increasingly AI-heavy workloads

“AI doesn't exist without our connectivity … plain and simple,” Desroches said during this week’s 2026 Mizuho Technology Conference. “And we know one thing for sure that data consumption is going to continue to go up under AI.”

Toward this, Desroches touted fiber as providing “the best ability to meet” that demand.

“You have symmetrical speed, highest speeds available, lowest latency, and importantly, the cost to deliver the unit cost to deliver bandwidth is the lowest with fiber,” Desroches said. “And it has a great maintenance profile, less power consumption, all things that make it incredibly attractive.”

This plays into AT&T’s fiber wheelhouse, which the carrier is currently building out toward passing 60 million premises by the end of this decade and driving an increase in enterprise-derived revenues.

“As we build out more fiber locations, and as we penetrate the existing fiber base, we're seeing an acceleration in growth in business fiber revenues, both shared and dedicated,” Desroches said of that process.

The executive also took a dig at rivals that have more recently entered the fiber space.

“It's a long game. You don't wake up five years from now and say, ‘oh, I want to be in the fiber business,’” Desroches noted. “We've been at this for a while, and we are building a network that is AI ready. There will be a lot ready to catch up and trying to figure out how to catch up as those consumption trends materialize. We're not going to be in that position.”

AT&T’s fiber confidence

Desroches fiber confidence echoes that of AT&T CEO John Stankey, who explained to a recent investor conference the carrier’s work with hyperscalers.

“We've been actively in the data center market and actively working with hyperscalers to ensure that we're building shared infrastructure into their access points and have the right relationships through a combination of dark and lit fiber that ensures that our backbone and our aggregation networks can deliver those packets that we get off of our preferred access into their infrastructure, and I have visibility as I hand it into the infrastructure and receive it back and deliver it to the endpoints,” Stankey said. “That's the fundamental approach we're using in how we architect the network.”

Stankey did add that “we're not maybe as vocal about it as some because we see it as only a part of our strategy to complement our access, where the real value is, and I think part of the reason you should assume that the improved performance that is occurring in our business market segment is related to what we've been able to do to sell on top of that value proposition and that infrastructure.”

That comment seemed tangentially tied to more “vocal” telecom network leaders that have touted the hyperscale opportunity.

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman, for instance, claimed the day before Stankey’s comments that Verizon “might be best positioned to capitalize on AI infrastructure. Obviously, the hyperscalers, alternative cloud providers, large enterprises that are moving rapidly into the AI age, are keen to leverage our assets.”

Schulman had previously stated that Verizon was in “deep discussions right now with hyperscalers, with alternative cloud providers, large enterprises to integrate our fiber, both dark and lit, and our 5G assets to support their AI infrastructure efforts.

“And that can include data center connectivity, ability to help them with their training and inference, and that is the potential for multibillions in revenue,” Schulman added, hinting, “we'll have more specifics on that in the next three to six months.”