AI's Next Infrastructure Constraint: Moving the Data (23:08)
theCUBE Research, Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026
Zayo's 2026 Bandwidth Report finds data movement, not compute, is becoming AI infrastructure's key bottleneck.
theCUBE Research's Bob Laliberte covers Zayo's 2026 Bandwidth Report, which finds that beyond compute, moving data between data centers, clouds, and edge locations is becoming AI's key infrastructure constraint.
Manufacturing, defense, and public-sector workloads plus robotics and AI are driving surging bandwidth demand, with one facility's needs growing from a 10-megabit connection to dual 100-gigabit links.
Fiber orders have grown from 8-12 fibers to as many as 432, and one AI lab needed 20 terabits of capacity deployed in 30 days, consuming a decade's expected capacity in 12-18 months.
Zayo is building infrastructure across 24 routes spanning over 8,000 miles, and enterprises are urged to map AI application needs against capacity and connectivity within a 3-4 year horizon.