London - November 9, 2026 – RETN, the leading independent global network service provider, has released its latest white paper, “AI, Connected: How AI is reshaping infrastructure, energy and the networks that connect it”.
Combining insights from senior experts across RETN’s global team with a survey of 2,000 consumers across the United States, Europe, and Asia, the report exposes the critical infrastructure bottlenecks, shifting traffic patterns, and soaring security risks behind the global AI boom.
With worldwide AI spending forecast to hit $2.59 trillion in 2026 and tech giants committing roughly $2 trillion to long-term capacity, digital infrastructure is under immense strain. Key takeaways from the research include:
- Consumers Are ‘Addicted’ to AI, but Half Don't Want Infrastructure Built Near Them: 84% of surveyed consumers use AI, and 54% say losing access would disrupt their lives within days. Yet, the public is split down the middle: 50% prioritise faster AI performance, while 50% would accept slower AI if it means fewer data centres and less data energy and water use where they live.
- AI Service Disruption Risks Losing Users to Competitors: Three-quarters of respondents experienced issues with their preferred AI service in the past year. When disruption occurred, 53% of users in Asia switched to another service, compared with 31% in Europe and 17% in the US. Across all markets, 18% began using an alternative AI provider regularly.
- AI Isn't Breaking the Internet - It's Moving to Private Fiber: Despite claims that AI is overloading public IP transit, AI traffic accounts for only a minor percentage of open internet growth. Instead, 80% to 90% of RETN’s AI-related requests are for private point-to-point links, dark fiber, and dedicated interconnects used to move petabytes of data directly between training clusters.
- Remote AI Data Centres Require Network Planning 2–5 Years Ahead: Growing power and cooling demands are pushing data centres into more remote locations, where land and energy are available but fibre connectivity may be limited. Developers increasingly need to involve network carriers two to five years before site turn-up, compared with the previous one to two years.
- Equipment Lead Times Reach up to 18 Months as Hardware Costs Soar: Network operators are competing directly with AI data centres for memory and chips, causing optical network equipment prices to jump ~50% in 2026 alone. Delivery lead times have stretched from 3 months to 12-15 months typically, with some reaching 18 months or longer, eliminating any buffer for last-minute capacity upgrades.
- 1,000x DDoS Attack Spikes and Rogue Agents Drive Push for Private Interconnections: Automated AI-powered DDoS attacks have surged up to 1,000x in intensity and sophistication over the past year, outpacing manual defence. At the same time, recent security breaches involving autonomous AI agents breaking sandboxes are pushing platforms to move training data off the public internet and into "clean data" private networks.
- Real-Time Processing Will Reverse Decades of Internet Traffic Patterns: As AI moves from centralised training to running real-time tasks fed by billions of connected devices, data will increasingly flow from end users back into the network. This shift will flip the download-heavy asymmetry of today's internet and push compute power out to the physical edge.
"We are at the very beginning of the changes AI is bringing to the network," said Tony O'Sullivan, CEO of RETN. "The AI race is often described as a race for compute, chips, power, and data. But it is the networks that bring all of these together. Those best placed for the future will not simply be those that build the most capacity, but those that build infrastructure capable of adapting when geopolitics changes and continuing to operate when individual parts fail."
The full white paper is available for download through RETN here: https://retn.net/trending/AI-Connected
Survey methodology
The survey was conducted via Pollfish in September 2026, polling 2,000 adults aged 18–64 across 11 markets: the US (600); the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain (800); and China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines (600). The survey findings were supplemented by insights from senior network experts across RETN's global team.
About RETN
RETN is one of the fastest growing independent Eurasian network service providers, awarded the title of Best Pan-European Operator of the Year at the Carrier Community Global Awards 2026, and Asia-Pacific Connectivity Provider of the Year at the Global Connectivity Awards 2026.
RETN’s unique solution to connect Europe and Asia is built on its own homogenous DWDM and IP/MPLS Network Platform and widely branched land routes, passing through Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia up to the border with China and further onwards into Southeast Asia.
RETN provides telecommunication services throughout its Eurasian network with short lead times, industry leading uptimes, and multiple layers of redundancy.
For more information on RETN and its services, please visit the company's website at www.retn.net
For press enquiries, please contact pr@retn.net