Designing Networks for AI: Rethinking Bandwidth, Latency, and Traffic from Core to Edge
AI workloads are fundamentally reshaping network requirements—driving exponential increases in east-west traffic, demanding ultra-low latency for real-time inference, and creating bursty, unpredictable bandwidth patterns across data centers, wide area networks, and the edge. At the same time, enterprises are increasingly running AI across a hybrid landscape: on-prem GPU clusters, workloads hosted in cloud service providers (CSPs), and AI agents operating within SaaS and public AI platforms such as Anthropic. OpenAI, et al.
This shift introduces entirely new network challenges. Traffic is no longer confined to the data center—it spans hybrid and multi-cloud environments, traverses APIs into external AI services, and requires secure, high-performance connectivity between enterprise systems and third-party AI platforms. Latency sensitivity, data gravity, and bandwidth demands now vary dramatically depending on whether workloads are training in the cloud, inferencing at the edge, or interacting with external AI agents.
Roy Chua is founder and principal at AvidThink, an independent research and advisory service formed in 2018 out of SDxCentral’s research arm. Roy was previously co-founder at SDxCentral where he ran both the research and product teams. Roy was formerly a management consultant working with both Fortune 500 and startup technology companies on go-to-market and product consulting. As an early proponent of the software-defined infrastructure movement, Roy is a frequent speaker at events in the telco and cloud space and a regular contributor to leading technology publications. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer science program and MIT’s Sloan School of Business, Roy has 20+ years of experience in telco and enterprise cloud computing, networking and security, including founding several Silicon Valley startups.
Jon Pruskowski is the Director of Cloud Networking within Capital One’s Cloud Platforms organization with responsibilities for global enterprise connectivity and security, intent-driven connectivity automation, and software defined networking. He has over 20 years of experience in technology leadership, solution architecture, and network engineering.
Raj Purkayastha is a seasoned technology and telecom leader with more than 25 years of experience spanning pre sales, business development, marketing, and delivery across enterprise and international telecom markets in both mature and emerging regions. As Vice President at Tata Communications, he leads the Pre Sales (Sales Engineering) organization for the Americas, partnering with large enterprises to shape their innovation and growth strategies. In this role, Raj works closely with CIOs and technology leaders to co create solutions that modernize digital infrastructure, simplify complexity, and accelerate what comes next for their businesses.
Throughout his tenure at Tata Communications, Raj has held multiple leadership roles across regions and business lines including Global Carrier Solutions and Enterprise Solutions, consistently delivering revenue growth, profitability, and top tier employee engagement results. He previously led India Pre Sales and served as the Global Head of Product Marketing where he helped translate complex technologies into compelling stories and customer facing narratives that drove product adoption and strengthened the company’s market presence.
Raj is deeply passionate about innovation and has expertise across technologies such as drone navigation, robotic process automation, and Internet systems. He is a patent holder with additional patents pending, and his research has been published across several emerging technology domains. At Tata Communications, he spearheaded the development of the company’s Work from Home solution stack during the COVID 19 pandemic, using internal IP to rapidly support customers’ evolving digital workspace needs. He has also led key digital transformation initiatives in retail, manufacturing, and other industries, helping enterprises adopt agile, resilient, and future ready architectures. Raj’s global impact includes leading a major country wide telecom transformation program for a government in Southern Africa that significantly expanded national network reach, improved affordability, and strengthened digital capability. His customer engagement philosophy focuses on delivering strategic points of view and thought leadership that help organizations rethink what is possible and reinforce Tata Communications’ leadership in critical markets.
Additionally, Raj has filed 6 Patents in areas of AI, Edge, Drones, RPA and Internet. 3 of these are already awarded to him.
As Technical Director, Aryo Kresnadi is responsible for setting network architecture strategies, futures and solutions for FedEx Global Enterprise Network supporting all FedEx information movement to ensure on-time delivery for all FedEx packages.
Current responsibility includes research and development of architecture, design and implementation of the next-generation network for FedEx data center, multi-cloud, and edge network for the FedEx field locations to support next-generation sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.
Aryo holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from Ohio State University and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (MSEE) from University of Pittsburgh. Aryo is currently based in Collierville, TN, the home of FedEx World Technology Center.
