Plano-based FiberLight on Tuesday announced plans to invest in overbuilding a significant portion of its already comprehensive West Texas network, in part to support large-scale data center and AI workload demands.
The company, a leading provider of high-capacity fiber-optic networks and connectivity services, has been a key player in driving West Texas’ development into one of the country’s top markets for artificial intelligence.
Its $150 million investment will also contribute to laying about 1,000 new route miles of fiber networks across Texas and increasing the company’s middle-mile network to support regional and local carriers and public institutions. The company already has about 11,000 route miles across the Lone Star State.
FiberLight CEO Bill Major told The Dallas Morning News in a Wednesday interview that there’s an “insatiable appetite” for what the company does, adding that fiber is critical infrastructure.
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“The fiber networks that are going in the ground today in Texas are what rivers and streams were for commerce 100 or 150 years ago,” Major said. “This is infrastructure. It’s the super highway to do everything.”
Major said in addition to supporting AI and hyperscalers, this investment plays a role in helping bridge the digital divide for rural connectivity in traditionally underserved communities by providing them with world-class broadband capabilities.
Over the last several years, FiberLight has been active across Texas, including being the first fiber provider for the Stargate Project in Abilene and investing in the Red Oak expansion and part of the Loop 9 Southeast Project south of Dallas, according to the company.
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This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.