Fibre ‘AI’s missing link’
August 10, 2026
Fibre is one of the most important, but the most overlooked, parts of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, says Rajiv Datta, CEO of Nexfibre.
While cloud computing and data centres dominate industry conversations and investment in recent years, Datta argues that fibre is the foundation connecting all these technologies together.
“Fibre is the underlying glue that connects everything together. In the end, all digital infrastructure is about moving information around,” Datta tells Mobile Europe.
“Data centres are where data lives or gets created; mobile networks are another medium to move things around, but even mobile networks require terrestrial, fixed-line fibre networks – much of that traffic gets backhauled onto fibre as fast as possible.”
Datta believes fibre has not received the same level of attention as other parts of the technology ecosystem. “The current data-centre phase, driven by AI, previously by cloud, is a huge consumer investment, because people perceive the value and returns based on the activity they’re sensing,” he says.
As business and consumers now rely more heavily on cloud services, remote working and emerging AI applications, upload capacity and responsiveness will become just as important as download speeds. “The digital economy isn’t just about browsing websites anymore – it’s two-way: people working from home, uploading as well as downloading,” Datta explains.
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