Neos Networks CEO says fibre is Britain’s AI tipping point

Last month, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves MP announced a landmark billion-pound investment into AI and quantum to scale technology nationwide.

“AI is the defining technology of our era,” the Chancellor said during her Mais Lecture in March. “Britain cannot afford to stand still. With this strategy, I believe we can approach the future with confidence – with the technologies of the future invented, built and deployed here in Britain.”

While investment into compute is necessary, Neos Networks CEO Lee Myall has argued that connectivity may be even more important to drive higher productivity and jobs across the UK.

“The narrative appears to focus solely on the AI compute infrastructure itself and ignores the other critical factors when looking to give a technical home to huge amounts of compute capability, including land, power and connectivity,” he explained at the time. “All three are critical to developing the high-performance data centres needed for AI compute.”

Neos Networks research has found that 82% of data centre operators had to delay site builds or expansion due to fibre availability. In fact, 95% have said access to new high-capacity fibre will directly influence where they invest next.

With projects in the UK stalling – including OpenAI’s recent decision to pause the Stargate UK initiative – Myall worries whether there is enough ambition or understanding at the government level to make the country a strong AI growth hub. He explained how funding will only accelerate the computer-driven demand for new data centre sites, meaning key national routes will require major upgrades in high-capacity optical and dark fibre.

“It’s not all about Slough anymore,” he said. “With the race to digitalise IT, availability zones needed to be clustered, but AI and LLMs aren’t latency-sensitive, and so people are chasing larger requirements of power, cooling, land and closer proximity to energy supply. It’s getting interesting.”

He added: “There’s good underlying capability in the UK. If the AI infrastructure and investment come, then we can maintain an incredibly powerful position.”

The railways: Britain’s hidden fibre highway

Myall is instrumental in delivering Project Reach, Neos Networks’ commitment to upgrading UK rail telecoms. The organisation has hundreds of points of presence (PoPs) and an extensive network of up to 16,500 kilometres for the project. Currently, about 1,000km is under active construction, with rights extending across the entire network.

Myall explained how Neos Networks also has a pre-agreed wayleave using the railway – with very predictable delivery times, which presents a unique option to developers.

“Our work with Network Rail is a fantastic example of public and private coming together,” he said. “We’re laying fibre every single night and we’re realising the demand for it so, if we see demand in an area that has rail proximity, there is certainly nothing phantom about the possibility of us getting fibre there.”

The main areas of traffic Myall is currently seeing include the western corridor towards Wales and Bristol, the West Coast Main Line towards Manchester and the East Coast Main Line towards Newcastle and into Scotland.

“We’re seeing a big increase in traffic coming into the UK from the Nordics landing on the northeastern route that needs to be brought to London and be interconnected,” he explained. “Developments along here, including data centres, have been announced and are starting to take shape.”

Neos Networks is eager to continue these routes where it already has plenty of existing infrastructure, but Myall shared that there is room for growth, with the company able to bring new infrastructure to any developments in these areas, including close to renewable energy.

“The potential paths are there, and we can socialise with the people looking to place big bets and make investments,” he said. “Wherever there is a railway track in the United Kingdom, we have a route, a mechanism, a methodology and the right to lay brand-new, high-capacity infrastructure.”

He added: “We’re positioning ourselves hard into that opportunity. What we need is basically for the UK to become lower friction for developments like that to get off the ground.”

Speaking on Neos Networks, Myall also teased a deal with a customer to support an AI Factory, which he expects to announce in the coming weeks.

“We have a very clear, defined path to where we’re building, or where our network will be more greatly exploited, as opposed to placing a PoP here, a PoP there and hoping the business will come,” he said. “We’re getting in right at the early stage.”

Turbocharging fibre for the connectivity era

After the dot-com boom of the early 2000s, which saw the industry overbuild fibre capacity (dark fibre), the lessons that have been learned are still being used today. Myall explained how, 26 years later, the reinvestment now required for greater capacity indicates how sensible the industry is being, and that investment will be on fewer routes at a much higher capacity.

“The investment community are not going to fund the ‘build everywhere and they will come’ mantra. That’s dead,” he said. “No one is working in a highly speculative way like before, or overbuilding along the same routes; it’s all around specific opportunity.

“The whole dynamic of how a deal gets done is creating more prudent construction of fibre infrastructure than we had in the past.”

Turbocharging fibre connectivity is no small feat, but Myall is confident that Neos Networks’ contribution will help to enable the future, paving the way for the critical pathways for AI that the UK is banking on.

“We’re working towards customer self-service, where people interact at an automated level,” he explained. “It’s about making digital connections to fulfil customer requirements faster.”

From this point, Neos Networks is starting to understand customer challenges and work to meet demand head-on.

“We look at how they automate and how we complement that automation with our own,” he added. “We’re delivering a low-friction, low-latency experience to the greatest extent possible and we’ve got to continue on that journey.”

Around that quality aspect for its customers, Myall said AI and automation will be critical to building intelligence on cost base and the supply chain.

“Based on deep intelligence, we are constantly improving,” he said. “It all comes back to speed of response and making everything work well for the customer.”

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