This week, Lumen Technologies announced that it has made significant progress in its buildout of the backbone for the artificial intelligence (AI) economy.
The company is moving ahead with its goal of adding 34 million new intercity fiber miles by the end of 2028, bringing its total of intercity fiber miles to 47 million.
According to the Lumen press release, this year the company has made several strides in AI readiness:
- The company added more than 2.2 million new intercity fiber miles (2,500+ route miles) and said they are projected to reach 16.6 million total intercity fiber miles by the end of the year.
- It constructed signal boosters at 176 In-Line Amplifier (ILA) sites. ILA shelters built on these sites serve as signal boosters along the Lumen network with up to triple the power density compared to traditional ILA shelters and are designed to be updated, renewed, and scaled for the future.
- It completed IRU conduit deployments across 55 additional routes, which expand Lumen’s ability to add and control fiber on these routes by securing long-term rights to underground pathways.
- This year, it has added more than 5.9 Pbps of total capacity to the Lumen network, preparing to deliver the bandwidth needed to handle large volumes of data processing for needs such as AI.
- It earmarked more than $100 million to bring high-speed connectivity up to 400Gbps across clouds, data centers, and metros, creating a more seamless, high-performance pipeline for AI workloads. The Lumen 400G-enabled network now spans more than 100,000 route miles.
“AI is fueling a surge in network demand like we’ve never seen, and Lumen is building the backbone to meet it,” Kye Prigg, Lumen Technologies executive vice president, enterprise operations said in a prepared statement.
“This isn’t incremental — we plan to more than double the size of our U.S. network. We’re positioning Lumen as the trusted network for AI, ensuring our customers have the network scale, speed, and reliability to confidently innovate and grow without constraints.”
Lumen Technologies’ recent work includes upgrades of the communications infrastructure of more than 70 data centers.
