ensure physical bandwidth is laid long before compute demand spikes.
“ The biggest operational risk for digital infrastructure providers is lack of supply,” Ciarán highlights.“ These AI providers need data centres for their compute, but they also need to connect these facilities so if they don’ t have enough fibre and capacity to collect the data, then there’ s going to be a real challenge. We are the supplier of connectivity, so we need to make sure our supply is available ahead of time so we’ re not slowing down or being the bottleneck to any innovation.”
Building a cable across an ocean that is 6,000km in distance is no easy feat. Yet EXA provides a unified offering stretching all the way from Chicago to Istanbul.
“ With these newer generations of technology, we don’ t have as much equipment as we used to,” Ciarán notes.“ What we call currents, or transponders – we have fewer layers of these things. Lots of our customers love working with us because we are one throat to choke. If there’ s a problem, it’ s on us; we won’ t need to talk to another provider.”
Beyond linking data centres together, having this unified reach ensures seamless performance all the way to the end user.
“ Telecom vendors play a pivotal role at the edge by being extremely close to the customer and in the transport of data between the enduser and the cloud,” Alan concludes.“ As AI is power constrained, the ability to transport data at both short and long distances plays a big role in ensuring that the application is not token-limited.”
technologymagazine. com 99