Lumen has delivered millions of new fiber miles this year, as the company aims to add 34 million new intercity fiber miles by the end of 2028.

It's part of Lumen's multibillion-dollar buildout, which will take Lumen's total build to 47 million intercity fiber miles.

The company's buildout is part of Lumen's strategy to meet the demands of AI workloads.

Lumen said it has added more than 2.2 million new intercity fiber miles (2,500+ route miles), and is on target to hit 16.6 million total intercity fiber miles by the end of this year.

According to Lumen, the rollout has been sped up due to using fiber optic cable from Corning Incorporated, which is designed to fit twice as much fiber into existing conduit.

"AI is fueling a surge in network demand like we’ve never seen, and Lumen is building the backbone to meet it,” said Kye Prigg, executive vice president, enterprise operations, Lumen Technologies.

"This isn’t incremental – we plan to more than double the size of our US 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 has completed IRU conduit deployments across 55 additional routes and increased network capacity. The company has also added more than 5.9 Pbps of total capacity to the Lumen network so far this year, which it notes is in preparation to "deliver the bandwidth needed to handle large volumes of data processing."

Elsewhere, construction is underway at 176 In-Line Amplifier (ILA) sites. An ILA shelter amplifies optical signals and is often placed in remote locations between data centers.

Lumen noted that its ILA shelters built on these 176 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.

The company has also designated $100 million to deploy high-speed connectivity up to 400Gbps across clouds, data centers, and metros. Lumen's 400G-enabled network currently spans more than 100,000 route miles.

Lumen also touched on its Private Connectivity Fabric (PCF), which it says is designed for AI workloads. The company claims that its PCF operates with 25 percent less optical loss than its rivals and 60 percent more capacity than traditional designs. It adds that PCF is able to "move data more efficiently and at greater scale."

“Every mile of new fiber and capacity upgrade adds to the strength of our Private Connectivity Fabric. Lumen is doing more than expanding infrastructure; we’re laying the foundation for the AI economy,” added Prigg.