US Signal is putting shovels in the ground to back its AI infrastructure ambitions.

The digital infrastructure provider is constructing more than 1,000 miles of high-density fiber and conduit across Ohio and Indiana, expanding its middle-mile network and strengthening connectivity between core and edge data centers in the region.

The build is an execution milestone following Igneo Infrastructure Partners’ $200 million investment last year in US Signal. At the time, US Signal said it would pair the fresh capital with new fiber construction and data center expansion. According to the company, roughly 30% of the new fiber routes are already complete, with the remaining network expected to be finished by early 2027.

“Many providers talk about future builds. We’re building now,” CEO Daniel Watts said in a statement, emphasizing that the routes rely on entirely new conduit and fiber rather than overbuilding existing infrastructure.

Middle-mile for AI scale

The Ohio and Indiana routes are designed as middle-mile infrastructure, connecting long-haul networks, regional aggregation points, and data centers. US Signal said the network uses multiconduit systems and high-count fiber to avoid the capacity constraints that can emerge as AI workloads scale.

Many infrastructure providers are shifting investment toward fiber density and physical optionality as AI training and inference workloads push traffic volumes higher. Middle-mile networks are becoming critical as enterprises and service providers look to move large datasets between data centers without relying solely on congested metro or long-haul paths.

As AI drives increased investments in data centers, US Signal said the new routes will directly interconnect its existing core data centers while also enabling future edge data center development along the fiber paths. That combination is intended to support latency-sensitive AI applications, hybrid cloud deployments, and regional service providers that need scalable transport without hyperscale-level buildouts.

US Signal offers dark fiber, lit services, colocation connectivity, and cloud-adjacent infrastructure, and the company said the Ohio and Indiana builds represent just one phase of a broader multi-state expansion strategy.