Lumen Technologies agreed to acquire Alkira for $475 million in an all-cash transaction announced May 5. The deal pairs Lumen’s fiber network with Alkira’s cloud-native control plane software for enterprise networking. Alkira was founded in 2018 by Pakistani brothers Amir Khan and Atif Khan who previously sold Viptela to Cisco.
Amir Khan grew up in Lahore, Pakistan before moving to the United States in 1984. He earned his master’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Khan co-founded Viptela in 2012 which pioneered software-defined wide area networking before Cisco acquired it for $610 million.
Lumen CEO Kate Johnson stated the acquisition gives customers a programmable network designed for the AI era. The transaction substantially completes Lumen’s digital platform by adding cloud-to-cloud connectivity capabilities. Furthermore, Alkira’s technology allows Lumen to extend reach beyond North America to partner networks globally.
The deal expands Lumen’s total addressable market to approximately $70 billion according to company estimates. Lumen CFO Chris Stansbury told Reuters the acquisition represents capital expenditure the company would not need to make. Consequently, Lumen expects annual capital spending to fall by $100 million to $200 million after closing.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals. Alkira enables enterprises to design, deploy, and operate connectivity across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Meanwhile, Lumen reported first-quarter revenue of $2.9 billion beating analyst expectations of $2.83 billion despite a net loss.
