Speaking during his keynote presentation at Metro Connect USA 2026, Greg Williams, director, equity research at TD Securities, gave a state-of-the-market address – considering sector stock performance and some of the most impactful trends he expects to impact the industry this year.

“We’re seeing even more big wireless – the earlier you grow, the more spectrum you get and we’re still plugging away,” Williams explained. “We’re calling for 28% growth by 2028 with both AI and non-AI workloads.”

He added: “Investors are willing to pay higher multiples, thus lower risk spreads, in anticipation of higher AI demand.”

Likewise, he said data centres have commanded good multiples over the last five years, with the takeaway being the hyperscaler and interconnect facilities having “gone up”.

He said: “What we also want to show is we saw higher multiples a couple of years ago, when rates were lower coming out of 2022. AI demand is buffering the decline.”

He added that “hyperscalers have held on fairly well” but that “the public-private gap is noteworthy” on account of “structural issues” because “who’s buying private data centre companies?”

From data centre demand to the fibre frenzy: Six trends set to reshape the sector

• Data centre demand

Yesterday’s keynote speaker Andy Lipman pointed out that “trees don’t grow to heaven” – but when it comes to data centre demand, Williams said 166.4 gigawatts (GW) of leasing took place in 2025.

“There’s a tree right there,” he said. “That’s triple the amount from 2023, with 28% of the total 1GW or more in leasing. We’re really seeing these larger deals, demonstrating that leasing demand is still going strong.”

Hyperscalers like Meta, Microsoft and AI-as-a-service players like Anthropic and OpenAI are driving demand, Williams said, with 92GW of AI data centre deals currently tracked in the market.

“That’s supported by massive capacity expectations going into 2030,” he added. “Bottom line: demand is booming in the first quarter and working ahead.”

• Financing the Deals

The scale of AI infrastructure investment is creating serious financing challenges, particularly for OpenAI and Oracle, Williams surmised. He highlighted that solutions being pursued include recutting hyperscaler contracts, bring-your-own infrastructure models, workforce reductions, debt and equity raises monetising non-core assets, vendor financing and a potential OpenAI IPO in 2026 or early 2027.

“There are six ideas,” he said, highlighting solutions that Oracle and OpenAI are going to have to pursue. “One is to recut contracts with hyperscalers, another is bring-your-own-infrastructure.

“Another would be to reduce overhead – we’re seeing Oracle cutting their workforce by 20,000-30,000 and has already started the process of raising debt and equity.”

He added: “Another option would be monetizing non-core assets, or to prioritise vendor financing, which we’re seeing all the time. Also, we could potentially see an IPO, which I’d suggest could be in 2026 or early 2027.”

• ‘The fibre frenzy’

Williams said dark fibre demand has grown enormously from roughly US$5 billion just two years ago to more than $13 billion. He broke the opportunity into three phases – training, inference and edge/machine-to-machine AI, adding that inference perhaps represents the most attractive near-term opportunity for fibre providers.

“What we’re seeing now is dark fibre for training is underway, but we’re very much anticipating the inference phase,” he said. “Inference leverages major metro markets where a lot of fibre already exists, giving you high margins and huge wave capacity.

“We’re seeing giga-wave services now and those are booming with very low CapEx because you already have a lot of infrastructure in the ground. So, we expect the AI inference phase to be a major opportunity for fibre providers.”

• Fibre to the home

At 10 million homes being built per year, Williams explained how fibre to the home has evolved beyond a standalone story into a strategic asset for wireless-wireline convergence.

“We’re seeing AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all at the forefront,” Williams explained. “The leading carriers are targeting 16 million-plus fibre homes this year. Verizon upped their game – it was at 35 million when we were speaking here last year, and they’re now paying $40,000 to $50 million.”

He added: “With M&A activity and lower rates, you’re going to see some shopping. A million homes is only the beginning – players will go to market.”

• The BEAD rollout

After much delay, Williams said the $42 billion BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program) programme is gaining momentum.

“It’s not the full $42 billion after the BEAD rollout, but at least it’s happening,” he said. “It’s finally great to see the ball rolling.”

• Assessing the satellite sector

Williams broke down the satellite sector into three sections.

First, he said satellite doesn’t compete directly with wireless, adding: “It’s not a substitute, it’s a complement to towers. Satellites simply lack the capacity to replace wireless.”

Second, he touched on the new EchoStar having sold spectrum to SpaceX and AT&T over the last year.

“They still have 600 MHz blocks they’re looking to sell,” he said. “And then there are the tower lease threats – they said, if the FCC has to weigh in, this is beyond our capabilities.”

Third, EchoStar has received billions of dollars in spectrum sales, which Williams said much of which came via SpaceX stock.

“SpaceX is trading like a growth stock right now. If you want exposure to SpaceX, the surrogate is to buy EchoStar shares,” he stated. “But they have said they are going to take the money and spend it on telecom and satellite, which are things they’re more familiar with doing.”

He advised the room: “You also want to stay in the game and come up with an agreement – but it still remains an open question.”

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