According to a global study commissioned by Ciena, around 60% of communications service providers (CSPs) believe the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will improve network operational efficiency by 40% or more.
“Understanding emerging technologies like AI is an essential step toward staying competitive in today’s constantly changing digital landscape. The survey highlights the optimistic long-term outlook of CSPs regarding AI’s ability to enhance the network as well as the need for strategic planning and investments in infrastructure and expertise to fully realize the benefits,” Jürgen Hatheier, Ciena’s International chief technology officer, said.
AI network benefits
The study revealed that upgrading networks with new traffic and network analysis software 49%, upgrades in switches and routers (43%), and investment in 800G technology (40%) are the most popular strategies to improve performance.
An overwhelming 99% of respondents believe they must upgrade fiber-optic networks to support more AI traffic.
AI-driven revenue opportunities
According to the study, CSPs believe that financial services (46%), media and entertainment (43%), and manufacturing (38%) will generate the most AI traffic and revenue opportunities.
Respondents also believe opening their networks to third-party integrations (40%), security and privacy services (37%), new product offerings (37%), creation of tailored subscription packages (35%), and differentiation on quality of connectivity service (34%) will generate revenue from AI.
Private vs. public cloud
Around 43% of CSPs lean toward private cloud deployment, 37% favour data centres of public cloud providers, and 21% plan to adopt a hybrid cloud model for AI services.
Job creation
Some 67% of CSPs project AI to generate jobs in cybersecurity (31%), machine learning (30%), and programming/coding (30%).
