Lumen Technologies is buying cloud networking company Alkira in a deal valued at $475 million, according to an announcement made on May 5. The acquisition will be completed in cash and brings together Lumen’s large fiber network business with Alkira’s cloud networking software platform.
Alkira was launched in 2018 by Pakistani brothers Amir Khan and Atif Khan. The two founders were already well known in the networking industry before starting the company. Earlier, they had built Viptela, a software-defined networking startup that Cisco later acquired for around $610 million. Amir Khan spent part of his early life in Lahore before moving to the United States in the 1980s. He later studied computer engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder and remained active in the networking space for years afterwards.
The Alkira acquisition is tied to Lumen’s broader cloud and AI strategy. Businesses are now running workloads across multiple cloud providers simultaneously, and managing these systems has become more complex. Lumen wants to position itself more directly inside that market. Alkira’s platform is designed for companies operating in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Instead of building separate networking systems for each cloud provider, businesses can manage everything through one control layer.
Lumen CEO Kate Johnson said the deal helps the company move toward a more programmable network structure built for modern AI and cloud demands. She also said Alkira’s software adds stronger cloud-to-cloud connectivity to Lumen’s existing infrastructure business.
Another factor behind the acquisition is expansion outside North America. Alkira’s architecture allows networking services to connect through global partner systems, giving Lumen a broader reach without building everything itself. The financial side also played a role in the decision. Lumen CFO Chris Stansbury told Reuters the company expects the acquisition to reduce future infrastructure spending. According to him, annual capital expenditures could drop by around $100 million to $200 million once the integration process is complete.
The deal expands Lumen’s addressable market to nearly $70 billion, the company says, with cloud networking sales booming as AI systems grow larger. It must clear regulatory approvals before being finalized. Lumen anticipates the deal closing at some point in the third quarter of 2026.
The release comes soon after Lumen had put out the most recent quarterly financials. First-quarter revenue of $2.9 billion was broadly in line with market expectations. Nonetheless, it is still showing a net loss for the quarter. For Alkira, the deal marks another major milestone for a company founded by two Pakistani entrepreneurs who built their reputation in enterprise networking over more than a decade.
