Stevens County Times reports...

Through the summer, crews working for Anderson Underground of Sauk Rapids have been installing four large conduits along Minnesota Highway 9 through Grant, Stevens, and Swift counties. They have also been working in the cities along the path.

Installation of the fiber conduit has raised a lot of questions about who is doing it and why. Many conversations have revolved around the conduit serving data centers that could be planned in the region.

Others say the project is part of the Heartland Fiber Project, a $700 million fiber-optic cable project that would run from Chicago through Minnesota to Montana and Wyoming.

After some research, the Stevens County Times learned that Billings, MT-based Intermountain Infrastructure Group (IIG) is behind the project.

“In Minnesota, IIG is installing about 250 miles of new fiber-optic cable to create a middle-mile network,” Brandon Coates, a spokesman for the company, told the Times in an email.

More details…

In October, the Minnesota Department of Transportation district office in Detroit Lakes prepared a permit for IIG to bury a fiber optic conduit along Minnesota Highway 9.

It is installing three high-density polyethylene (HDPE) conduits that are 2 inches in diameter, and one that is 2 inches in diameter with seven microfiber cables inside. The other conduits are empty.  The permit says that “One 432 Ct fiber will be placed in a 2” conduit, and another 432 Ct micro fiber will be placed in the 7-way.”

Coates was also very specific that the project has no link to data center construction that serves the exploding needs of the artificial intelligence industry.