Enterprises believe networking will make or break AI adoption

As businesses integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into more applications, from manufacturing and healthcare to financial services, demand for high-speed, low-latency, secure networks has surged, but a study from IDC has revealed that legacy infrastructure is no longer sufficient to support the scale and complexity of current, never mind future, AI workloads, and emphasises that network modernisation is crucial to ensuring  AI success.

The study, commissioned by NTT Data and Cisco, a global leader in digital business and technology services, reported that in implementing the appropriate future infrastructure, the stakes are high. It said AI will likely generate a $19.9tn global economic impact by 2030, 3.5% of worldwide GDP, but only if enterprise networks can keep up.

The resulting report, titled Wired for intelligence: A CIO guide to enterprise networking for AI, noted that enterprises want to adopt AI, but that they are still working from old playbooks. Half of the businesses in the survey indicated that they were in the early stages of generative AI (GenAI) adoption and would integrate AI into 10-20 applications. By contrast, over 10% of enterprises in the advanced stages of GenAI adoption said they would integrate AI into over 30 applications.

Another key finding was that networks were seen as the critical foundation empowering AI-driven growth. More than 78% of companies regarded networking capabilities as either important or very important when selecting providers for GenAI infrastructure, underscoring, said NTT Data and Cisco, the need for networks that can handle and secure ever-scaling AI workloads while running complex AI training, inference and storage clusters with ease.

At the same time, modernisation was also infusing AI into network operations through AI-driven configuration, anomaly detection, self-healing and intelligent monitoring to accelerate issue resolution and elevate user experience. The survey said that already, industries like manufacturing, healthcare and financial services were using AI in networking to improve operational efficiency, ensure secure connectivity and reduce costs.

Firms were seen as already using agentic AI to automate the integration of disparate systems, and 40% of enterprises globally are looking at incorporating agentic AI into network operations. This shift, observed the report, was transforming networking from a background utility into a strategic business driver, one that determines whether AI investments are able to scale successfully or stall.

Your network will make or break your AI transformation. Overcoming the challenges of legacy networking technologies is essential

Commenting on the trends revealed in the survey, Chris Barnard, vice-president of European telecoms and infrastructure at IDC, said: “Your network will make or break your AI transformation. Overcoming the challenges of legacy networking technologies is essential. This IDC InfoBrief gives organisations the steps to transform enterprise networking from a bottleneck into a business advantage.”

NTT Data and Cisco said they are responding to the industry shift by helping clients evolve from outdated architectures to intelligent, adaptive infrastructure that can power AI-driven innovation.

“As two market leaders, NTT Data and Cisco are well positioned to help clients modernise their digital infrastructure foundations for the AI era,” remarked Dilip Kumar, global head of technology solutions at NTT Data. “The network exists as a catalyst for growth, and organisations can unlock powerful new capabilities and achieve AI-driven business transformation at scale.”

Brink Sanders, senior vice-president of global networking sales at Cisco, said network modernisation is about more than replacing old hardware. “It’s about allowing enterprises to lead in an AI-driven world,” he added. “Our partnership with NTT Data equips clients with the technology and expertise needed to build secure and connected networks.”