Nvidia has approached Apollo Global Management about turning buildings owned by Brightspeed, the broadband provider Apollo owns, into a network of small AI data centers, The Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the effort. The network could span 20 states, the outlet said.
In a post on X, The Information said Nvidia has submitted a proposal to convert some of Brightspeed’s 130-plus telecom buildings and that “Nvidia estimates the sites have roughly 1 gigawatt of available power”. Across 130 buildings, roughly 1 gigawatt would average about 7.7 MW each, by our arithmetic; the report does not say how many buildings the estimate covers.
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The key insight: As we read it, the pitch trades one big site for many small ones: roughly 1 gigawatt, by Nvidia’s estimate as The Information reported, in some of 130-plus existing telecom buildings across up to 20 states. Averaged across 130 buildings that is about 7.7 MW each, by our arithmetic; Apollo’s funds bought the business from Lumen in a $7.5 billion deal agreed in 2021.
The outlet framed the idea simply: “Nvidia is looking for a faster way to get its chips turned on: old telecom company buildings.” Its report says Nvidia approached Apollo “about creating a network of small AI data centers potentially spanning 20 states across the U.S., using existing buildings of a struggling telecom firm”.
On X, The Information described Brightspeed as “an Apollo-owned broadband provider reportedly nearing bankruptcy” and said the roughly 1 gigawatt was “potentially enough to run tens of billions of dollars of Vera Rubin chip systems”. Neither Nvidia nor Apollo is quoted in the accessible parts of the report, and the full article is behind a paywall.
Kevin McLaughlin, one of the three reporters on the story, wrote on X that “Tech companies have discussed turning telco central offices into AI data centers for some time”.
Brightspeed is the former local phone business of Lumen Technologies. Lumen agreed in August 2021 to sell its incumbent local carrier operations in 20 states to funds managed by Apollo affiliates “for $7.5 billion, including debt assumption of approximately $1.4 billion”, covering a business serving “consumer and small businesses in 20 Midwest and Southeast states”.
Lumen closed the sale in October 2022, saying it had sold the business “in 20 states to Brightspeed”. The 20-state figure in The Information’s report is the same count as in Lumen’s sale.
The strain on Brightspeed has shown up before in our coverage: hedge fund Arini Capital’s losses came from distressed telecom holdings including Brightspeed, according to a summary of a Wall Street Journal report.
The Numbers Behind the Pitch
Google’s planned Wyoming campus is put at 2.7 GW of power capacity in county filings, as we reported on Thursday. Nvidia’s estimate for the Brightspeed sites in its proposal is roughly 1 GW, according to The Information.
Averaged across 130 buildings, about 7.7 MW per building, by our arithmetic, is roughly the draw of 13 of the 600 kW Kyber racks Nvidia plans, before cooling and other building loads, using the rack figure in our rack-density piece.
As we read the report, the buildings matter because they already exist: The Information calls the plan Nvidia’s “Workaround For Data Center Backlash”.
As we read the numbers, about 7.7 MW per building, averaged across 130 buildings, is close to the draw of 13 of the 600 kW racks Nvidia plans, before cooling, by our arithmetic.
As we read the ownership, the report’s 20-state figure is the same count as in Lumen’s 2021 sale to Apollo’s funds.
The Information on X, 5 November 2026
“Nvidia estimates the sites have roughly 1 gigawatt of available power, potentially enough to run tens of billions of dollars of Vera Rubin chip systems.”
Three Implications
FOR NVIDIA The report says Nvidia is looking for a faster way to get its chips turned on, using buildings that already exist.
FOR APOLLO AND BRIGHTSPEED The Information describes Brightspeed as an Apollo-owned broadband provider reportedly nearing bankruptcy; the proposal concerns some of its 130-plus buildings.
FOR READING THE REPORT It rests on two people with direct knowledge; a proposal is not an agreement, and the 1 gigawatt is Nvidia’s estimate.
The framework says: “Companies that solve the power equation will dominate the AI era; those that don’t will watch their chips sit idle.”
As we read it, Nvidia’s reported pitch is an attempt at that power equation from the supply side: buildings that already have power, rather than new campuses. The framework does not discuss Brightspeed or this proposal.
What Is Not Established
The report rests on two unnamed people; neither Nvidia, Apollo nor Brightspeed is quoted in the parts we could read. A proposal is not an agreement, and the accessible parts of The Information’s report do not say whether Apollo or Brightspeed has responded. The 1 gigawatt is Nvidia’s estimate, and the per-building figure is our average across 130 buildings, not a measured load. Brightspeed’s financial position is described as reported, not confirmed.
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According to The Information, Nvidia has proposed turning some of Brightspeed’s 130-plus telecom buildings, across up to 20 states, into small AI data centers with roughly 1 gigawatt of power, by Nvidia’s estimate. Averaged across 130 buildings that is about 7.7 MW each, by our arithmetic. The buildings belong to the business Apollo’s funds bought from Lumen in a $7.5 billion deal agreed in 2021.
A note on sourcing. The report and its figures are from The Information, 5 November 2026 (accessible text and the outlet’s posts on X; the full article is paywalled), citing two people with direct knowledge. Sale details are from Lumen Technologies’ 8-K exhibits of 3 August 2021 and 3 October 2022. The per-building figure is our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
