AI is redefining the way operators of all kinds design, scale, and operate their networks. Ciena鈥檚 Brodie Gage explores how optical innovation and autonomous operations are enabling the global network fabric for the AI era.
Artificial Intelligence is not just another application riding on today’s networks—it is a transformational force that demands the reinvention of networks themselves. From hyperscalers and neoscalers to service providers, enterprises, and governments, every type of operator is evolving its network to power the rise of AI.
Who are the Neoscalers?
Neoscalers are providers of AI infrastructure, such as GPU-as-a-service and LLM operations platforms. Separate from the hyperscalers, the category also includes cloud and edge service providers and data center and colocation providers. As AI demands accelerate, these neoscalers are building their own highly scalable optical networks to fuel business growth.
The vision ahead is clear: building a global ‘AI network fabric’ that interconnects massive GPU clusters, scales connectivity between AI training and inference sites, connects enterprises to AI applications at the level of performance they require, and enables the shift toward more autonomous networking at scale. Unlike past incremental upgrades, this is a foundational shift—an architectural reimagining of how networks are designed, built, and operated.
Three pillars define this transformation:
- Architectural evolution: the modernization of architectures across all types of network operators to enable AI at scale, meeting the unique requirements of AI workloads with cloud-like elasticity and on-demand networking principles.
- Physical infrastructure: breakthrough innovation in optical systems and components to maximize scalability across all dimensions of the AI fabric—within data centers, between data centers, and across global networks.
- Operational overhaul: Agentic AI brings intent, context, and decision-making into operations—enabling networks to move beyond today’s limited forms of automation toward dynamic, coordinated, and increasingly autonomous operations.
This is the foundation of the AI-driven economy, with optical innovation serving as the key enabler of monetization opportunities for every participant in the AI network ecosystem.
A historical shift in networking
Every major era of technology has been defined by its networks. The internet created the digital economy. Mobile networks unlocked ubiquitous connectivity. Cloud networking gave rise to hyperscale business models.
Now, AI represents an equally profound inflection point. It is not just another service layer; it is forcing a total rethinking of the network fabric. For network operators, this means new architectures, new operating models, and in many cases, new business strategies.
Scaling the AI data center up, out, and across
Data centers were once designed for enterprise applications, video streaming, content delivery, or cloud services. Today, AI is reshaping them from the inside out. To understand how, it’s useful to look at the three distinct dimensions of connectivity inside and between AI data centers:
- Scale-up: connecting GPUs within local compute clusters
- Scale-out: connecting clusters across racks
- Scale-across: interconnecting entire data centers into AI “factories” that span geographies
This evolution pushes networks past incremental change into a new era of optical innovation, as copper infrastructure gives way to fiber and electrons give way to photons. Intensity Modulation and Direct Detection (IMDD) is making way for coherent optics, as higher capacities, better signal propagation, and more reliable performance are required across varying distances. Power, space, density, and performance constraints drive new optical solutions—spanning components, systems, and advanced packaging techniques—that reduce cost and increase availability at scale.
Fiber is no longer just the backbone of wide-area networks; it is the foundational medium on which the AI era is being built. This progression is enabling a new class of AI data centers that will power everything from advanced large language models (LLMs) to real-time 3D applications.
Interconnecting AI infrastructure at global scale
The AI network fabric is expanding with unprecedented speed. According to our analysis, in 2025 more than 300 new AI data centers will be operationalized worldwide, doubling to nearly 600 new data centers added in 2030. Meeting the demands of this scale requires a portfolio of advanced optical technologies, each bringing unique strengths to the table:
- High-capacity optical transport: 400G, 800G, 1.6T today—and higher rates to come—delivered in low-power, space-efficient form factors.
- Performance optics: enabling optimal spectral efficiency while also supporting longer distances, higher density, and superior performance.
- Pluggable optics: offering power and space advantages while supporting an increasing number of use cases that meet both distance and performance requirements.
- Multi-rail photonic layer architectures: increasing throughput beyond single-rail limits, segmenting traffic types, and adding resiliency, while also improving power and space efficiency as more fiber is deployed.
This is not theory—it is happening now, and it is creating opportunity across the AI network ecosystem. Hyperscalers are building GPU clusters that require multi-petabit links between facilities. Neoscalers are rapidly capitalizing on demand with new, high-capacity network builds. Wholesale providers and telcos are racing to connect a wide range of network operator sites with ultra-high-speed wavelength services and managed optical fiber network (MOFN) solutions.
An expanding global AI network fabric
Evolving enterprise services to monetize AI demand
These same optical innovations are also reshaping the enterprise services landscape. The rise of AI in the enterprise is accelerating demand for advanced, high-speed services that build on today’s foundational wavelength offerings.
As AI applications move from simple chatbots to autonomous systems capable of executing complex workflows, data volumes will explode. To build and operate AI agents, enterprises need to move massive datasets—text, video, images, even 3D models—across multiple clouds and edge sites. To support this, a growing number of service providers are delivering high-capacity optical fabric and network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings that allow for flexible bandwidth to edge data centers and clouds.
In short, service innovation is now inseparable from network innovation. Both are essential to unlocking the full potential of the global AI economy.
Autonomous operations
Building the fabric is only half the story. Operating it is the other. Traditional workflows are no match for the complexity and dynamism of AI-era networks.
The next leap is agentic AI in operations—AI agents that act with intent, apply context, and coordinate across entire networks. These agents are powered by:
- Advanced telemetry that feeds real-time insights
- Specialized knowledge bases and LLMs for reasoning
- Proactive analytics to prevent failures before they occur
- Closed-loop automation to remediate issues instantly
- Self-optimizing intelligence that tunes networks continuously for performance and efficiency
From telcos improving service assurance to cloud providers optimizing traffic engineering, operators across industries are already adopting AI-driven operational models. Over time, we will see networks that are not only built for AI but also evolving toward higher levels of AI-enabled autonomy in their operations.
Networks at the center of the AI revolution
AI is remaking the world’s networks in real time. This is not an overlay; it is a foundational architectural shift on par with the birth of the internet or the rise of the cloud.
Building the global AI fabric requires rethinking physical infrastructure, evolving architectures, reimagining services, and embracing AI-driven operations. At the heart of it all is optical technology—quietly, but profoundly, shaping the future. As the AI revolution unfolds, networks are not simply supporting actors. They are the stage itself, the essential fabric upon which the AI-driven economy will be built.
Ciena is at the forefront of AI network transformation. With unmatched innovation in optical networking and AI-driven operations, we’re enabling our customers to set the pace for how networks evolve. The winners of this era will be those who embrace network transformation as an engine of growth and source of differentiation. This blog kicks off a series of articles where we’ll showcase the key innovations fueling this shift.
Next up, I’ll explore the expanding landscape of operators shaping the AI era and how Ciena empowers them every step of the way. Stay tuned.
