Lumen Technologies is partnering with data mining firm Palantir to boost its AI pivot.

The collaboration will see Lumen use Palantir’s Foundry system and Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) across its operations, finance, and technology divisions. The move is targeted at streamlining legacy functions such as compliance reports, decommissioning aging telecom infrastructure, and enabling Lumen’s migration to modernized ecosystems.

“Working with Palantir allows us to harness AI to accelerate our modernization efforts and deliver the network and services our customers need in the AI era,” Lumen CTO Dave Ward noted in a statement.

“Lumen is redefining what’s possible in telecom by fusing AI into the very fabric of its operations. With Foundry and AIP, Lumen is accelerating its transformation into a technology infrastructure company,” Ted Mabrey, head of Palantir Commercial, added.

Lumen’s AI pivot

The partnership comes as Lumen is selling its consumer fiber business to AT&T for $5.75 billion, prioritizing both its enterprise fiber and network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings.

While Lumen saw a 5.4% drop year-over-year in its latest quarterly earnings, the company was buoyant about its AI drive, touting nearly 1,000 NaaS customers, which supports both AI and cloud services.

Lumen also reported significant growth in its AI-driven infrastructure business during Q2 2025. This was especially evident in its Private Capacity Fiber (PCF) segment, with a total of $9 billion in deals, up from $8.5 billion in the previous quarter.

As covered by SDxCentral, there is a growing demand to bolster inter-data center networking connections in support of AI-related data inferencing, with investments rising in optical network connections between large data centers and edge locations.

As such, Lumen is betting big on an AI-infused networking future, with Ward previously telling SDxCentral that the result will be “the largest expansion of the internet in our lifetime.”

The company revealed last year its AI investments are geared toward supporting a standing $5 billion in aggregate sales it had already booked from hyperscalers and more, and an opportunity toward an additional $7 billion in sales pipeline.

From the hyperscalers, Lumen uses Google Cloud and Microsoft’s Azure cloud as part of its digital transformation efforts. It also uses a cloud-native operations support system (OSS) from Ciena subsidiary Blue Planet for network inventory management.

Palantir in telecom

Lumen's Palantir partnership gives the data firm a new telecom customer, with Palantir software also used by AT&T and South Korea’s KT.

Palantir markets a version of its Foundry core data integration and operations platform to the telecom market, which can be deployed on-premises or as a cloud-native software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering. That platform can keep track of data regulatory requirements, and is a multivendor product compatible with infrastructure from the likes of Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei.

The Foundry service enables a digital twin of a telecommunications network that can be linked with customer information, bringing together usage patterns, service quality, and customer experience data.

The platform also touts an Eco-RAN service that optimizes radio access network (RAN) configurations to save energy, particularly with the expansion of 5G networks.

Its AIP platform meanwhile is a governance and orchestration system especially designed for enterprise use.