Partners Launch Heartland Fiber Project to Expand High-Capacity Connectivity Across Upper Midwest

DCN, Range, and WIN Technology, three regional backbone fiber providers, announced a joint investment to expand high‑capacity fiber infrastructure across America’s heartland. The initiative, known as the Heartland Fiber Project, will create a new long‑haul fiber route designed to increase network capacity, resiliency, and flexibility to support the rapidly growing connectivity requirements across the industry and meet demand from AI hyperscale data center development in the region. The Heartland Fiber Project will span seven states—Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois—establishing a route containing high fiber count and future path conduit to support future growth between Denver and Chicago. The $700 million investment represents a 2,000-mile expansion of regional network infrastructure that is designed to deliver the scale, resiliency, and performance demanded by next‑generation AI workloads and hyperscale computing environments.