Lumen CFO talks new fiber network partnership with Anthropic

Yahoo Finance Video and Julie Hyman

Fri, February 27, 2026 at 5:20 AM GMT+9

In this video:

LUMN

+0.21%

Lumen Technologies (LUMN) has reached a deal with Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) to help expand the private AI startup’s fiber-optic network across North America. This comes as tensions between Anthropic and Pentagon officials over a debate around AI safety.

Lumen CFO Chris Stansbury sits down with Julie Hyman to speak more about the company’s Anthropic partnership amid its own turnaround narrative.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts.

Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

Um, I quickly want to ask about Anthropic before we dig into the rest because um, your stock went up during the investor day and then ended up coming down. And I read out there that there maybe were some concerns about Anthropic because of its wrangling with the Pentagon over its current contract and the sort of knock-on effects potentially for its supply chain. What can you tell us about that?

00:30 Chris

So really when you think about what Lumen does, we are the trusted network for AI and the relationship with Anthropic is like the relationships we have with the hyperscalers. They need our network to to have their product work with their customers. And so, um, that’s where we engage with them. The discussions with the government are obviously multiple layers away from where we are. But I think really what we’re seeing right now is what we’ve seen play out with cloud and other things where as new technology comes in, it’s disruptive and it takes a while for policy and governance to catch up. And I think we’re just seeing that play out right now. Um, so we’re not too concerned about that. Uh, we’re really focused on continuing to provide the services that we do for them and and others.

01:21 Speaker A

Can you tell me sort of about um, your revenue in terms of how reliant you are on individual customers?

01:31 Chris

Yeah, so we have uh, significant diversity across our customer base. and part of how we’ve turned around the company is with 13 billion dollars of sales to hyper scalers, neoclouds like Anthropic. And um, and there’s not concentration really in any one. And I think what that really is is a proof point for us for investors, um that we are the trusted network for AI. We’re the only ones with the capabilities to do the things that they need for AI to work. uh and that’s why we really sit in a special place as we pivot to the future.

02:11 Speaker A

Okay, so let’s talk about that place. So you guys are a fiber optic company. You as you said, have changed the company considerably. You sold off the consumer business for example. Um talk to me about network as a surface because this is going to be a new concept to a lot of people. How does the business model now work?

02:35 Chris

So, let’s just do a a a quick look back in terms of what uh, what the shortcomings of kind of enterprise networking have been. And really it was just point to point. Everything was very static. uh everything was slow to deliver. I need to get from my premise to my data center or to a public cloud. And what we’re seeing as uh data is chasing energy. Uh and data is the fuel really that uh that everybody needs to be consuming to keep uh GPUs running. Um is this proliferation and now you need to get from anywhere to anywhere. So it’s not just from your premise into a cloud. It’s from cloud to a cloud from DC to a cloud. Network is a service on locks that. So it’s the gateway uh for our customers to on demand get access to a programmable network where they can move data from anywhere to anywhere.

03:40 Speaker A

So they’re not renting or buying a specific line from here to here. They’re just getting capacity to get wherever they need to get.

03:51 Chris

Correct. Correct. So so rather than having a bunch of network engineers, you know, sitting uh downstairs in the lab and waiting for petabytes of data to to be downloaded so that they can then can be moved to another location. We can give you an express route where on demand you can do that uh in a fraction of the time. So it’s about big pipes, it’s about low latency, but it’s about that on- demand capability and the programmability to get from anywhere to anywhere. and we’re the only ones building that.

04:29 Speaker A

And you’re build it costs a lot to build this kind of infrastructure and I know that you guys are not expecting to be profitable for a little while here as you do that building. So how what’s then the message for investors on that?

04:45 Chris

So really a few things. Uh, we will inflect EBIDA this year. Uh and uh and so EBIDA is really the measure in the industry and uh and we’ll see it start to grow. We’ve committed to to doing that as part of our guidance. Revenue follows in a couple of years, 2028 in our business segment because we still do have a legacy business that gives us great cash flow but it’s in decline. What we’re seeing though is that as customers adopt NAS, it’s really starting to accelerate.

05:22 Speaker A

NAS is that network as a service.

05:23 Chris

NAS is network as a service. Yes. And we’re seeing it grow uh in the high 20s, 30s percent quarter on quarter. So we had 1,000 customers roughly in August. We’ve now got 2,000. And so it’s starting to scale still small, but we expect to see uh rapid adoption as customers realize that they can consume on demand and really in their own way.

05:53 Speaker A

Um how what do people need to know about the competition in this space? As you said, you guys are kind of uniquely pivoting to this model, but surely there are other fiber providers out there.

06:05 Chris

That’s the point. There are other fiber providers, but they’re very much point- to- point. and and a few things about that. There’s there’s fiber providers, there’s service providers. Uh, but but there’s not a fiber provider who has the breath of network that we have or the underlying capacity as well as uh network as a service capabilities, the the ability to digitize uh the the network. So, we really are in a unique spot where we have both, which allows us to go much deeper with customers in terms of providing a service level that they need in a world of AI.

06:48 Speaker A

Um, as I mentioned, the stock did go up yesterday, then it came down. It’s recovering a little bit today. Do you think investors got the message yesterday or do you think that Anthropic provided a distraction and and what did they hear that that they shouldn’t have or you know, was there a misunderstanding?

07:07 Chris

No, it’s a it’s a great question. The feedback we got from the event yesterday was fantastic. uh because it really did lay out how not just the business but the underlying economics of the business changed. We we are moving to a consumption model. Uh it is more of a price times quantity uh formula now where as customers sign up, they they bring in a port, they can consume services uh through software. and so it’s a much more scalable model which people are really excited about. I think what we’re seeing more broadly is as a company, we’re now starting to be more recognized with the AI trade. There’s a lot of near-term volatility as people are trying to figure out what all that means. From our standpoint though, uh because we are the only network that can do the things that we’re doing is there while there will be winners and losers in the large language model space, Right. whoever wins is going to need our network. And so we’re really good with that.

08:24 Speaker A

Got to leave it there Chris. Thank you so much for coming in.

Terms and Privacy Policy

Privacy Dashboard

More Info