COMMUNICATIONS
Scaling AI Must Start with Infrastructure Following on from UC Advanced March issue, which covered DE-CIX CEO Ivo Ivanov’s thoughts on Mobile World Congress 2025, Mareike Jacobshagen – Head of DE-CIX’s Global Business Partner Program – shares her thoughts with UC Advanced on the big ideas discussed at this year’s event.
This year’s Mobile World Congress took place during an uncharacteristically warm spring day in Barcelona, but it wasn’t the weather drumming up a fever. Far from the usual buzz around mobile-broadband convergence or the emergence of 6G, virtually every stand in the Fira exhibition centre was showcasing, discussing, or asking important questions about artificial intelligence. MWC regulars will know that AI isn’t a new topic at the conference, but the excitement and interest around it this year was palpable. Visitors got a glimpse into a future where AI is embedded in every aspect of technology – autonomous networks, AI-powered smartphones, and even humanoid robots capable of adapting to real-time instructions. Yet, beyond the excitement of new devices and services, one fundamental question loomed: is our network infrastructure ready to support AI at scale? According to McKinsey, the number of organisations deploying AI-based solutions almost quadrupled from just 20% in 2017 to 78% in 2024. For generative AI – whether AI inference for real-time data processing and analytics, or AI model training for more targeted and advanced deployments – the growth is even more pronounced, more than doubling from 33% to 71% in the space of just one year. And remember, these are just business deployments – the actual impact AI will
have on societies is almost too big to predict, from smart city infrastructure and medical diagnostics to self-driving vehicles and even everyday use. AI has broken ground so quickly that it has already begun to outpace our ability to support it. Legacy network infrastructure is prone to congestion and bottlenecks that are already limiting the real-world adoption of some of the use- cases demonstrated at MWC. Shortly after ChatGPT was released in 2024, even paying subscribers were greeted with the message “Sorry! We’re at capacity,” as OpenAI’s servers buckled under the weight of demand. As businesses continue to lean into AI, they could be getting a very similar message – or worse, be stuck with sluggish AI systems that aren’t performing optimally while wondering what the problem might be. The message is clear: high-performance computing, seamless data mobility, and low-latency connectivity are no longer just desirable – they’re essential if AI is to
Mareike Jacobshagen Head of Global Business Partner Program
de-cix.net
One fundamental question loomed: is our network infrastructure ready to support AI at scale?
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