(SeaPRwire) –   LONDON and SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 25, 2026 — Openreach, a top telecommunications firm operating the UK’s largest broadband network, today announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud to advance its sustainability and connectivity goals. By deploying Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI and data science technologies, Openreach is optimizing its commercial fleet — the UK’s second-largest by vehicle count — and speeding up the rollout of gigabit full fiber broadband to millions of UK households.

Leveraging Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and BigQuery, Openreach has implemented key initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of its 24,000-van fleet, boost operational efficiency, and enable faster broadband installations for customers.

Optimizing the UK’s second-largest commercial fleet

With its vehicles covering nearly 200 million miles annually, Openreach has migrated its fleet telematics data to Google Cloud to drive meaningful sustainability and efficiency gains. By applying advanced geoanalytics, these initiatives are already cutting emissions and unnecessary mileage, while also generating millions of pounds in annual operational savings across the country. Using BigQuery’s geoanalytics capabilities, Openreach can now:

• Speed up transition to electric vehicles: Openreach can now identify the most effective locations to replace diesel vans with electric ones, based on real-world usage, routes, and charging availability. The company’s rich cloud-based fleet data has accelerated EV rollout significantly, with these additional electric vans removing approximately 10,000 tonnes of CO2e from the road each year.
• Reduce mileage and emissions: Openreach can pinpoint root causes of idling and excessive travel to lower fuel consumption, especially in clean air zones.
• Enhance fleet availability and efficiency: Openreach can minimize “vehicle off road” (VOR) time to ensure the right vehicles are available where they’re most needed.
• Enable proactive vehicle health management: Openreach can turn data into actionable insights to identify potential faults, creating a safer and more reliable fleet.

Building a digital twin of UK transportation corridors

Openreach has created a digital replica (twin) of the UK’s transportation corridors using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. This platform integrates data from 35 million homes and businesses with national road, rail, and waterway networks, as well as its existing broadband infrastructure. This allows planners to visualize exactly where full fiber can be extended sooner — identifying eligible homes and businesses — enabling a smarter, more sustainable expansion of Openreach’s Full Fiber network.

Optimizing engineering with Gemini Enterprise

Openreach is using Gemini Enterprise, Google Cloud’s agent orchestration platform, to boost the efficiency of its cloud engineering work. The platform enables data engineers to automatically convert complex legacy queries into clean, production-ready code for BigQuery. By handling these repetitive tasks, Openreach has already reduced time-to-insight by over 50%, allowing engineers to prioritize building new solutions over manual code maintenance.

“As the builder of the UK’s largest broadband network and operator of the country’s second-largest commercial vehicle fleet, we take our responsibilities seriously,” said James Tappenden, managing director of fiber first & shared services at Openreach. “By applying Google Cloud’s technologies to real operational challenges, we’re seeing practical, measurable benefits — from connecting more families to gigabit broadband faster, to cutting vehicle emissions across our workforce. This partnership helps us work smarter, move quicker, and build a more sustainable network for the UK.”

Maureen Costello, vice president of UKI and SSA at Google Cloud, said: “By harnessing the power of AI and empowering its engineering teams with Gemini Enterprise, Openreach isn’t just visualizing data; it’s using it to make real-world changes that benefit the British public and the environment. We’re proud to support Openreach’s journey toward a more connected and sustainable future.”

About Openreach

We’re the team that keeps the internet running.

Our wholesale broadband network — the UK’s largest — supports over 680 service providers like BT, SKY, TalkTalk, Vodafone, and Zen to deliver broadband, TV, phone, data, and mobile services to their customers.

Any company can access our network via equal pricing, terms, and conditions, and our team of around 28,000 people helps deliver services to every community in the UK.

Currently, we’re investing £15 billion to build a new full fiber broadband network for 25 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026. Work is on track, with the company planning to expand even further — up to 30 million premises by the end of the decade — assuming investment conditions remain supportive.

We’ve already reached 22 million premises and are adding thousands more every week. We’re also retraining thousands of our existing engineers to help build, connect, and maintain the new network.

Our new network will help Openreach and its customers drastically cut emissions; research suggests nationwide full fiber broadband could save 400 million commuter trips each year. We’re also switching our commercial fleet — the UK’s second-largest — to zero emissions by 2031.

We’re a fully owned and independent subsidiary of the BT Group, and for the year ending March 2025, we reported revenues of £6.157 billion.

Find out more at www.openreach.com.

About Google Cloud 

Google Cloud is the modern approach to cloud computing, offering AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud provides a powerful, fully integrated, and optimized AI stack — including its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models, development platform, and AI-powered applications — to help organizations transform. Customers in over 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

 

SOURCE Google Cloud