A new report from Hostinger Tutorials (AI statistics and trends: New research for 2025) suggests the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry will help the sector continue to outpace other industries in terms of economic growth over the next ten years.
Why? Two reasons:
- Information and Communications companies are already big users of AI for customer service chatbots and that will continue. AI increasingly will be used for network design, analytics and monitoring and eventually be used for full zero-touch, self-designing networks.
- AI is enabled by Information and Communications and needs the segment to succeed to include everything from software development to data centers and communications.
Anyone who paid any attention to the stock market in 2024 knows that technology companies did well, driven by the promise of AI. AI tech companies often get mentioned in the same breath as data centers. But for all the discussion of investment in building massive new data centers, there is relatively little discussion of the upgrade required to telecom networks.
Every new data center needs fiber to connect the computing power to the networks. And as that computing power is filled with AI-driven requests from enterprises and consumers, more network capacity will be needed to deliver the results to the end user.
Think of a garage: If you build a garage in the middle of a large field, the building is useless without roads connecting it to the highway. How are you going to get your cars in and out of the building without roads? It is the same with data centers – they need power and connectivity to function.
In other words, as we build more data centers, we also need more wireless and fiber capacity.
AI needs connectivity as much as it needs software, chips and data centers. Connectivity needs to deliver data all the way to and from the end user, no matter their location, without any bottlenecks along the way. This presents a massive opportunity for new and upgraded wireless infrastructure to match the investments in massive new data centers.
AI and connectivity will be a big topic of discussion at WIA’s annual conference, Connect (X) May 12 – 14 in Chicago. Join the conversation and register today – early registration discount ends on January 31, 2025.