AT&T, Global Infrastructure Partners and CPP Investments will fold Forged Fiber 37 and Gigapower into a new wholesale fiber joint venture, backing the operator's plan to pass more than 60 million fiber locations by the end of 2030.

The partners announced the agreement on October 6, 2026. Affiliates of AT&T (NYSE: T), GIP — a part of BlackRock — and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will form a U.S. joint venture that operates as a wholesale fiber commercial open access company.

The venture brings together two fiber platforms: Forged Fiber 37, the newly created subsidiary holding the fiber build engine, network assets and operations that AT&T acquired from Lumen, and Gigapower, AT&T's existing wholesale fiber joint venture with GIP.

AT&T closed its Lumen transaction on February 2, 2026, acquiring substantially all of Lumen's Mass Markets fiber business. The deal included customer relationships — folded into AT&T's advanced home internet services — and fiber network assets placed in the wholly owned subsidiary Forged Fiber 37 Services, LLC.

What does the JV actually build?

The partners say combining the investments will accelerate fiber builds in more communities across the country, delivering infrastructure to meet growing U.S. demand for high-performance connectivity as AI begins to reshape network traffic.

For AT&T, the structure matters commercially. The JV gives the operator a capital-light path to expand fiber service in major metro areas across 16 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Oregon and Washington — markets largely outside its traditional footprint.

The operator counts the 60 million target as the sum of:

• AT&T Owned and Operated locations — customer locations passed by AT&T's own fiber network
• AT&T Fiber Ventures locations — locations served through the acquired Lumen mass markets fiber business, Gigapower and other commercial open access providers

Wholesale model, retail muscle

The JV's construction capabilities from Forged Fiber 37 and Gigapower will let AT&T keep expanding fiber beyond its incumbent service areas, while the operator's distribution scale sells the end product. Pairing the two, AT&T says, will let it offer more customers fiber internet alongside 5G wireless and grow its base of high-value converged customers.

AT&T, which describes itself as America's largest fiber provider, also framed the pension and infrastructure-fund participation as a signal of market confidence in its fiber strategy and ongoing build program.

That framing is the company's own. The concrete facts are the asset perimeter — two wholesale platforms under one open-access roof — and a defined geography of 16 states, with construction capabilities already in place from both the Lumen integration and Gigapower's existing builds.

The transaction continues AT&T's march toward its end-of-2030 target of more than 60 million fiber locations, with the JV's builds in the 16 target states now counting toward that total through the Fiber Ventures bucket.