Infra Bytes: VFE, DE-CIX, South Front, Duos, Lumen

Three metro expansion projects and one bit of M&A news:

Virginia Fiber Express is getting ready to launch a new fiber infrastructure buildout on the eastern seaboard. They have secured CLEC and IXC operating lincenses from Virginia, which enable them to launch Phase 1 of a 5-phase project connecting parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. Phase 1 will be 126 miles of diverse fiber between Northern Virginia and Richmond-Sandston that avoids the I-95 corridor. VFE will be working with Express-tek and S&N Infrastructure to make it happen.

DE-CIX has a new partnership out in the Midwest with South Front Networks. The deal will give DE-CIX Chicago access to an additional 20 PoPs across the region, and provide South Front Networks’ customers with 400GE access to DE-CIX’s interconnection ecosystem. South Front Networks’ infrastructure reaches Peoria IL, Des Moines IA, and Minneapolis MN.

Duos Edge AI has a new project to work on at its campus down in Columbus, Georgia. They have executed an MSA with Nistar to deploy up to 2MW of critical IT-load capacity. Duos’ Columbus campus will have 10MW installed and billing by the end of August, with another 10MW to be installed in the October-November timeframe. Nistar will be deploying some 1024 NVIDIA B200 GPUs in support of AI demand.

And Lumen has polished off its most recent inorganic move, closing on the purchase of Alkira. They have brought Alkira’s on-demand networking platform in-house, and will now move toward integrating both the technology and the talent into their Lumen Connect solutions portfolio Lumen sees the technology helping accelerate its ability to deliver a programmable, AI-ready network experience.

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