Microsoft and Lumen Join Forces to Sell AI-Ready Networks on Azure

Microsoft and Lumen Technologies said Monday they will jointly sell networking to big companies moving their AI operations onto Azure. Lumen, a US fibre network operator, plans to bring its entire cloud networking portfolio to Microsoft's platform. The two companies' sales teams will pair up on deals where networking, cloud migrations and AI overlap. Neither side put numbers or a timeline on the table.

The pitch is simple: AI needs data from everywhere — public clouds, private data centers, offices. The networks stitching those places together are often patchy, so Microsoft and Lumen want customers planning the network and the Azure move at the same time rather than bolting one on after the other.

"AI is reshaping where applications run and how organizations use and move data," said Katy Brown, a corporate vice president at Microsoft. The AI boom has also cranked up demand for fibre, with network-equipment maker Ciena saying it can barely keep up.

Customers don't have to wait for the full rollout. One Lumen product, Alkira, is already available through Microsoft's online store for business software. Alkira lets companies manage connections between clouds and offices from a single spot, and Lumen bought it for $475M earlier this year.

The pair also plan to explore how their networks could pair with Microsoft's tools for controlling AI agents, though they stayed quiet on specifics. It's an extension of a 2024 tie-up in which Lumen supplies the fibre links running between Microsoft's data centers.

There's plenty of runway. Azure blew past $100B in yearly sales in July, and every workload that lands there needs a pipe to feed it.