Researchers found enterprises are spending time troubleshooting cloud connectivity due to increased AI workloads, reports Computer Weekly. More than 400 IT and infrastructure decision-makers (US and UK) were surveyed for internet/cloud/AI exchange operator DE-CIX by market researchers Censuswide. But despite 96% of respondents claiming their enterprise networks are ready for cloud/AI loads, the average IT team still spends more than 11 hours each week resolving cloud connectivity problems: Other leading concerns included downtime or reliability issues (26%), latency or slow performance (28%), and security vulnerabilities/DDoS attacks (27%). Cost of connectivity, staff expertise and lack of visibility/control over data flows were also cited as major challenges... As a result, as indicated in the study, many businesses are now turning to private interconnection, which enables enterprises to connect directly to cloud providers over dedicated infrastructure rather than routing traffic across the public Internet. Designed to deliver lower latency, greater resilience, enhanced security and more predictable performance, private interconnection has become an increasingly important way of supporting modern cloud and AI workloads. Specifically, the data showed that 61% of companies are already using private connectivity to clouds, while another 31% are actively considering it... [And 71% of enterprises with 1000 or more employees] Only 8.62% of the smaller companies were spending 21 to 40 hours per week dealing with connectivity issues, while just 2.53% of the largest companies in the sample do. Summing up these findings, DE-CIX said that together they suggest direct interconnection is rapidly becoming a core component of enterprise cloud and AI infrastructure and a competitive advantage for companies, though optimising interconnection strategies clearly remains a pressing challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises... "Every AI application depends on data moving quickly, securely and predictably between users, clouds and AI infrastructure. Our research suggests that far too many enterprises are still spending valuable time trying to maintain that kind of connectivity, with more than a third spending between 11 and 20 hours per week, and just under one in 10 spending between 21 to 40 hours per week. This confirms what we already knew — that that network architecture can make or break AI adoption." Elsewhere The Register reports that cloud infrastructure services "grew at their fastest for eight years during the second quarter of 2026, thanks to the AI craze and continued demand for flexible and scalable IT infrastructure." According to the latest figures from Synergy Research, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure passed $143 billion in Q2, a year-on-year growth rate of 43 percent. This followed 11 successive quarters of increasing growth rates, during which the market has now doubled in size... "AI has, of course, driven most of that incremental growth, and we now see year-on-year growth rates of 165 percent for AI-specific cloud services...." And the top three global players continue to dominate the market, with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud together accounting for 67 percent of all the cloud revenue during the quarter. That percentage has increased since the third quarter of last year, when the triumvirate made up 63 percent of enterprise cloud infra spending.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers found enterprises are spending time troubleshooting cloud connectivity due to increased AI workloads, reports Computer Weekly. More than 400 IT and infrastructure decision-makers (US and UK) were surveyed for internet/cloud/AI exchange operator DE-CIX by market researchers Censuswide. But despite 96% of respondents claiming their enterprise networks are ready for cloud/AI loads, the average IT team still spends more than 11 hours each week resolving cloud connectivity problems Other leading concerns included downtime or reliability issues (26%), latency or slow performance (28%), and security vulnerabilities/DDoS attacks (27%). Cost of connectivity, staff expertise and lack of visibility/control over data flows were also cited as major challenges... As a result, as indicated in the study, many businesses are now turning to private interconnection, which enables enterprises to connect directly to cloud providers over dedicated infrastructure rather than routing traffic across the public Internet. Designed to deliver lower latency, greater resilience, enhanced security and more predictable performance, private interconnection has become an increasingly important way of supporting modern cloud and AI workloads. Specifically, the data showed that 61% of companies are already using private connectivity to clouds, while another 31% are actively considering it... [And 71% of enterprises with 1000 or more employees] Only 8.62% of the smaller companies were spending 21 to 40 hours per week dealing with connectivity issues, while just 2.53% of the largest companies in the sample do. Summing up these findings, DE-CIX said that together they suggest direct interconnection is rapidly becoming a core component of enterprise cloud and AI infrastructure and a competitive advantage for companies, though optimising interconnection strategies clearly remains a pressing challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises... "Every AI application depends on data moving quickly, securely and predictably between users, clouds and AI infrastructure. Our research suggests that far too many enterprises are still spending valuable time trying to maintain that kind of connectivity, with more than a third spending between 11 and 20 hours per week, and just under one in 10 spending between 21 to 40 hours per week. This confirms what we already knew — that that network architecture can make or break AI adoption." Elsewhere The Register reports that cloud infrastructure services "grew at their fastest for eight years during the second quarter of 2026, thanks to the AI craze and continued demand for flexible and scalable IT infrastructure." According to the latest figures from Synergy Research, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure passed $143 billion in Q2, a year-on-year growth rate of 43 percent. This followed 11 successive quarters of increasing growth rates, during which the market has now doubled in size... "AI has, of course, driven most of that incremental growth, and we now see year-on-year growth rates of 165 percent for AI-specific cloud services...." And the top three global players continue to dominate the market, with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud together accounting for 67 percent of all the cloud revenue during the quarter. That percentage has increased since the third quarter of last year, when the triumvirate made up 63 percent of enterprise cloud infra spending.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.