Verizon said Tuesday that it has agreed to sell its cloud and managed hosting service to IBM, in addition to working with the tech company on what it called “a number of strategic initiatives involving networking and cloud services.”

 According to Verizon, this is a “unique cooperation” between two tech leaders to support global organizations as they look to fully realize the benefits of their cloud computing investments.

It is the latest development in an ongoing IT strategy aimed at allowing Verizon to focus on helping their customers securely and reliably connect to their cloud resources and utilize cloud-enabled applications, said Verizon. The transaction is expected to close later this year.