Rethinking Critical Infrastructure for AI

Why It Matters

Telecom operators and enterprise IT must invest in new architectures, security and automation now or risk bottlenecks and service failures as AI applications proliferate, creating both strategic opportunity and operational risk. Providers who deliver programmable, high-performance AI-ready networks can capture new revenue streams in the emerging AI economy.

Summary

Speakers at MWC argued that AI is transforming network traffic from human-driven media to constant machine-to-machine flows, creating unprecedented demands for extreme bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and new east-west security. Networks must evolve into programmable, observable “data supply chains” that interconnect clouds and data centers with deeper caching and fine-grained control as the WAN effectively becomes the LAN. Service providers face the need to build resilient, sovereign fabrics and expose APIs so networks can be managed like compute and storage. The consensus was that autonomous, AI-driven networking will be required to operate and optimize these complex environments at scale.

Original Description

AI is reshaping what networks are built to do. As AI workloads accelerate, networks are no longer just transport layers - they are becoming intelligent, adaptive infrastructure that both powers and uses AI. From scale and interconnectivity to automation and resilience, the architecture of critical infrastructure is being redefined in real time.

In this FNTV studio panel from Barcelona, Diana Groovaerts is joined by Samir Parikh, VP of Product Management at Cisco; Kate Johnson, President and CEO of Lumen Technologies; Sachin Verma, Chief Data and AI Officer at Rakuten Mobile; and Colin Bannon, CTO of BT Business and BT International. Together, they explore how AI changes network responsibility, how infrastructure must evolve to handle new demands, where security fits in, and what the future network actually looks like from the perspective of those building it. In partnership with Cisco.

Watch more FNTV coverage from Barcelona.

#AI #Telecom #Infrastructure #NetworkInnovation #Cisco