How Ciena is Powering Regional AI Data Centre Growth

As the global AI race continues to heat up, data centre connectivity requirements are being stretched. This has caused organisations to move from centralised AI processing to more distributed models, which is making regional data centres increasingly critical.

To confront this shift, leading provider of networking systems and software Ciena has been building connectivity infrastructure for AI workloads since early 2024.

Kevin Sheehan, Ciena’s CTO of the Americas, explains that the company’s initial AI focus involved “building up connectivity between data centres where learning was taking place” to bolster connectivity between facilities to support AI training.

He says: “We had to teach all of these engines how to do AI, and they continue to learn whatever aspect they're being targeted for.”

Confronting infrastructure challenges

The data centre industry is now witnessing a focus on distributed AI models – those that bring computation closer to end users. Looking ahead, Kevin reveals that this transition will occur in phases, suggesting: “Distributed first into regional locations, then into metro locations and finally right out to the edge.”

This shift has created significant infrastructure challenges for data centre operators: more high-speed connectivity, power efficiency and latency.

“Whether we’re talking about centralised AI or distributed AI, it’s about network capacity,” Kevin says. “There’s huge growth in network capacity related to AI.”

Power consumption presents another challenge for data centre companies. As data centres expand their capacity and add more networking equipment, electricity demand soars whilst supply remains constrained.

“There’s just not enough electricity. It’s really important to balance huge increases in capacity without huge amounts of energy usage,” Kevin continues. “You want these inference engines to work in as real-time a fashion as possible.”

Building a connectivity evolution

Enterprise customers are driving much of the demand for distributed AI infrastructure, with companies across a broad range of industries adopting AI that requires new types of connectivity solutions.

However, these organisations increasingly need to access external graphics processing units (GPUs) – the chips essential for AI workloads.

What sets Ciena’s approach to AI infrastructure apart is its core strength: offering the highest network performance, speed and connectivity while also maximising capacity on optical fibres. The company has maintained this leadership position for more than 25 years, investing heavily in miniaturising its technology whilst improving power efficiency. 

“We still provide almost double the capacity as our nearest competitor on a single wavelength with our WaveLogic 6 coherent optics,” Kevin reveals.

Ciena’s focus aims to address the dual challenge of increasing capacity whilst working to reduce energy consumption.

Kevin explains that Ciena has also developed capabilities in IP and optical convergence – the integration of internet protocol networking with optical transmission systems, integrating coherent pluggable transceivers directly in routers.

“Power utilisation is critical and minimising that is as important as growing the amount of fibre capacity. So Ciena’s uniquely positioned on that front,” he says. 

“Ciena is one of the only providers in the industry that has a true multilayer management system that’s also AI ready as we continue to add AI functionality into our management platform – having a single pane of glass to monitor and troubleshoot is critical.”

Capturing a changing AI market

Ciena’s relationship with DC BLOX highlights the company’s collaborative approach to data centre market development. The companies have worked together for a number of years across the US and involve regular communication to share market insights and technical requirements in order to anticipate future connectivity needs across the data centre industry.

“We share our insights on where things are going and where additional connectivity might be needed,” Kevin says. “We’ve formed a very close partnership with them across all levels of the organisation and listen equally to what they’re hearing and what they need – both from locations and from technology.”

This engagement model reflects the rapidly changing nature of the AI infrastructure market and how the data centre industry needs to move to support it. 

Kevin adds: “One thing we know for sure in the AI space is that it's changing rapidly. The more communication and the more eyes on the field, the more likely you are to have great success.”

To read the full DC Blox's report, click HERE.