Predictions from Zayo, Digital Infrastructure, and Mission Crucial Group about what to anticipate from AI infrastructure in 2026
As AI workloads scale and infrastructure cycles compress, the strain on networks, energy programs, and bodily deployment fashions is intensifying. By 2026, business leaders count on aggressive benefit to hinge much less on uncooked compute and extra on how intelligently infrastructure could be designed, related, secured, and advanced.
Executives from Zayo, Digital Infrastructure, and Mission Crucial Group define how AI-driven safety, network-centric architectures, long-haul fiber consolidation, energy system adaptability, and regulatory and labor constraints will form the subsequent section of AI infrastructure. RCR has compiled their predictions under.
Shawn Edwards, chief safety officer, Zayo:
By 2026, the resilience of a community can be outlined by how intelligently it may well defend itself
“Conventional, static community architectures merely can’t hold tempo with AI-accelerated threats that mutate, transfer laterally, and probe infrastructure sooner than human operators can reply. The benefit shifts to networks that may sense and interpret irregular patterns in actual time, robotically alter routing, prioritize clear paths, and quarantine hostile site visitors earlier than it impacts providers. As adversaries lean into autonomous AI to find weaknesses at scale, the one viable protection can be networks that use AI to constantly study, adapt, and harden themselves. The fashionable community received’t simply transfer packets; it would detect, predict, and reply at machine pace.”
Jason ‘JJ’ Jorgensen, senior vice chairman of community implementation, Zayo
Regardless of insatiable bandwidth demand, the long-haul ecosystem will begin to slender — for the higher.
“The surge of latest capital into long-haul fiber will spark innovation and much-needed enlargement, however not each entrant can be geared up for the operational realities of large-scale builds. The gauntlet of permits, jurisdictions, vendor chains, and environmental components can derail a venture that already prices upwards of tens of tens of millions of {dollars}, leaving some builders within the crimson and delaying important progress. Over the subsequent two years, we’ll see the market self-correct as expertise and execution rise to the highest. On the similar time, the sheer tempo and scope of building will power deeper aggregation throughout the ecosystem to speed up supply at scale. This pure shaking-out of the market will create a extra disciplined ecosystem able to constructing on the scale, pace, and high quality AI requires.”
James Tomko, senior vice chairman, Digital Infrastructure
The AI infrastructure stack flips
“By 2026, the community will outline AI efficiency. AI coaching, inference, and information motion will stretch throughout areas and regulatory boundaries, and the true limiter received’t be GPUs however interconnects throughout all the AI ecosystem. As distributed AI materials emerge, success will rely on how intelligently information strikes between compute nodes, not simply how briskly it’s processed inside them. As such, the community will change into the management aircraft of AI.”
By 2026, the aggressive edge in AI received’t come from compute density alone, however from community design
“As AI workloads scale throughout distributed information facilities, the power to maneuver, synchronize, and handle information effectively will matter as a lot as uncooked compute. Metro-scale and long-haul fiber will outline the winners of distributed AI — those that can interconnect and orchestrate information throughout areas, clouds, and edges. The subsequent wave of AI management received’t be received within the information heart alone, however throughout the networks that join them.”
Jeff Drees, CEO, Mission Crucial Group
Electrification and GPUs will reshape the design cycle, forcing steady evolution
“Organizations constructing or integrating energy programs inside industries present process electrification — comparable to information facilities, automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare — should understand that right this moment’s designs can be out of date inside two to a few years. Fast adjustments in GPU and CPU know-how, in addition to evolving cooling approaches, are reshaping energy and electrical architectures at unprecedented pace. The outdated mannequin of over-engineering with a buffer is disappearing; new websites have to be constructed for instant high-density efficiency with minimal slack.
In consequence, engineering organizations will embrace modular blocks, upgradeable parts, manufacturing unit testing, and use scenario-based planning to arrange for future density will increase. Designs will shift from static, single-lifecycle initiatives to versatile programs constructed for repeat refreshes throughout a 20- to 30-year constructing lifespan. Iteration will change into a every day actuality as new compute necessities ripple by cable sizing, voltage technique, and energy supply pathways. In 2026, adaptive engineering practices would be the solely viable response to a world the place infrastructure should evolve as quick because the know-how it helps.”
Matt Coffel, chief industrial and innovation officer, Mission Crucial Group
Regulatory and allowing friction will sluggish the race to construct AI infrastructure
“Regulation and allowing will stay a defining constraint on information heart enlargement in the USA all through the approaching yr and past. As operators and know-how firms race to scale capability amid accelerating AI demand, they’ll proceed to confront challenges with securing approvals from native governments and state businesses, not just for constructing permits but additionally for environmental impacts, emissions, and noise.
And, as a result of laws and allowing necessities fluctuate extensively by jurisdiction — the place the method can differ dramatically inside main cities versus simply exterior metropolis limits or in additional rural areas — companies should study to navigate a maze of guidelines that introduce complexity, uncertainty, and potential delays to their initiatives. In consequence, information heart operators will more and more search companions who perceive native regulatory landscapes and might ship options tailor-made to the precise necessities of the communities the place they plan to construct.”
Expert labor shortages will change into a important threat within the information heart provide chain
“With the rising growth of knowledge facilities — and the important energy infrastructure required to help them — there’s an ever-increasing demand for expert labor comparable to electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, and even plumbers. Nonetheless, studies point out {that a} hole between out there expertise and open jobs will develop, growing dangers for information heart operators. This demand for expert employees will push organizations, governments, and academic establishments to speed up efforts to coach the subsequent era for these roles. Extra particularly, we are going to see deeper collaboration between employers and close by academic establishments — significantly these positioned close to power-infrastructure manufacturing hubs, information heart construct websites, and comparable industrial corridors — to create applications tailor-made to the technical necessities of those jobs and set up clear, path-to-career pipelines for college kids upon commencement. We’ll additionally see information heart operators and power-supply companions lean extra closely on full, pre-tested energy modules that simplify set up and assist offset the rising pressure on specialised labor.”
