DCN, Range, and WIN Technology are building a high‑capacity fiber network to meet the growth needs of hyperscaler AI providers—reflecting the latest effort to fulfill hyperscaler needs outside of the increasingly crowded data center hubs.
Known as the Heartland Fiber Project, this initiative will span seven states – Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois – establishing a high-fiber-count route and a future-path conduit to support growth between Denver and Chicago.
The $700 million investment represents a 2,000-mile expansion of regional network infrastructure designed to deliver the scale, resilience, and performance demanded by next‑generation AI workloads and hyperscale computing environments.
Construction on the Heartland Fiber Project is slated to begin this summer. Deployment will take place over the next one to two years, with activation coordinated across the three companies.
Emerging market targets
A key element the new collaborative network will bring is another option for hyperscalers for high-speed long-haul connectivity.
This comes as artificial intelligence has dramatically increased the amount of data that must move quickly and reliably between data centers.
And while Northern Virginia has become the world’s largest data center hub, hosting roughly 35% of all known hyperscale data centers globally and routing up to 70% of the world's daily internet traffic, hyperscalers are increasingly looking to other alternative markets to house their new facilities.
According to the three partners in the Heartland Fiber Project, “hyperscale operators are increasingly turning to America’s heartland due to available land, access to power, and favorable climate conditions that help improve energy efficiency.”
The group added that these developments are driving the need for purpose‑built fiber infrastructure capable of supporting massive, sustained bandwidth requirements.
Each of these providers brings something to the table that can serve the hyperscaler community’s bandwidth needs through their wide-reaching fiber networks in the Midwest.
Serving nearly 400 communities, DCN has more than 70,000 miles of fiber cable in service. Likewise, Range operates over 6,500 miles of fiber network, and WIN brings a 22,000-mile fiber network and strategically diverse data centers.
Multi-use network
While serving hyperscalers is the main focus of the Heartland Fiber Project, the three partners have emphasized that the new network will also serve existing and new business customers.
All three partners deliver a wide range of dark fiber, Ethernet, and optical wavelength services for business and wholesale carrier customers, including hyperscaler data centers.
Seth Arndorfer, CEO of DCN, said the new network will “ensure that we can meet the needs of businesses, including hyperscalers, looking to invest in our state as well as continuing to serve current customers with resilient, high-capacity infrastructure.”
Similarly, WIN Technology, which already has been supporting hyperscaler activity in Wisconsin with what it calls built-to-suit networks across the Midwest, sees an opportunity to enhance its network capabilities.
“The Heartland Fiber Project strengthens our ability to provide diverse connectivity to Chicago and the west, while continuing to deliver reliable service that supports businesses, communities, and emerging technologies for years to come,” said Scott Hoffmann, CEO for WIN Technology.
But the true testament of the new network initiative is that it reflects the rural telco industry’s willingness to enter partnerships that leverage a collective set of assets to serve new demands like hyperscalers.
Rob Johnstone, CEO at Range, noted that the partnership among the three service providers allows them to be more responsive to hyperscalers by offering a broader collection of network assets.
“This collaboration allows us to deliver scale and resiliency more efficiently than any one provider could alone,” Johnstone said, adding that “by combining our strengths, we’re creating meaningful infrastructure that addresses both current demand and future growth.”
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