Lumen to Buy Alkira, Unifying Cloud Networking Under One Control Plane

Lumen Technologies announced a $475 million all-cash acquisition of Alkira to fuse Alkira’s cloud-native, carrier-agnostic control plane with Lumen’s fiber network, creating a single programmable platform for connecting data centers and multiple clouds. The deal aims to accelerate Lumen’s digital platform, expand into cloud-to-cloud and data-center interconnectivity, and broaden its global market reach (estimated TAM ~ $70 billion). Closing is expected in Q3 2026, with near-term margin neutrality and long-term accretion as the platform scales.