New DE-CIX research finds that despite 96% of respondents claiming their enterprise networks are ready for future cloud and AI initiatives, the average IT team still spends more than 11 hours each week resolving cloud connectivity problems.
New York. Businesses are confident their networks are ready to support the high-performance connectivity needs of AI, but the data tells a different story. That’s according to new research from DE-CIX, the world’s largest Internet, Cloud, and AI Exchange operator. The survey conducted this month by Censuswide which included more than 400 IT and infrastructure decision makers across the US and UK, revealed that while 96% are confident that their networks are ready to support cloud and AI initiatives over the next two years, an average of 11.5 hours per week – more than a full working day – is still spent resolving network connectivity issues.
Companies worldwide will invest almost $7 trillion in data center infrastructure by 2030, with more than 40% of that spending taking place in the US.[i] Meanwhile, the UK has invested $60 billion in private-sector AI infrastructure since July 2024. As governments and businesses continue to spend billions expanding the infrastructure underpinning AI, DE-CIX’s research suggests many enterprises continue to overlook one critical component: the network connecting users, applications, data, and cloud environments.
“AI has understandably brought renewed attention to GPUs, data centers, and compute capacity, but none of those investments deliver their full value without the network that connects them,” said Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX. “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 ten spending between 21 to 40 hours per week. This confirms what we already knew – that that network architecture can make or break AI adoption.”
Data Sovereignty and the Multi-Cloud Problem
This is due to the increasingly complex nature of multi-cloud workflows. As enterprises seek ever greater control over where their data is stored, processed, and transferred, data sovereignty has become an important consideration in cloud strategy, driven by evolving regulations, geopolitical uncertainty, and growing concerns around digital resilience. Almost one quarter (23%) of respondents cited data sovereignty/geopolitics as their most significant cloud connectivity challenge in the next 12 months.
Other leading concerns included downtime or reliability issues (26%), latency or slow performance (28%), and security vulnerabilities/DDoS (27%). Cost of connectivity, staff expertise, and lack of visibility/control over data flows were also cited as major challenges, underlining the sheer complexity involved in connecting and managing modern multi-cloud environments.
The Interconnection Imperative
The data shows that 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, it has become an increasingly important way of supporting modern cloud and AI workloads. 61% of companies are already using private connectivity to clouds, while another 31% are actively considering it.
The survey found that, while 71% of enterprises with 1000 or more employees are using private connectivity to clouds, only 31% of medium-sized enterprises with 100 – 249 employees use such solutions. Conversely, nearly one in ten of the smaller companies (8.62%) are spending 21 to 40 hours per week dealing with connectivity issues, while only one in forty (2.53%) of the largest companies in the sample do. Together, the findings suggest direct interconnection is rapidly becoming a core component of enterprise cloud and AI infrastructure and a competitive advantage for companies, though optimizing interconnection strategies clearly remains a pressing challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises.
From Troubleshooting to Time Saved
“For enterprises, the opportunity is not only to improve application performance, but to reduce the operational burden created by complex cloud connectivity,” Ivanov added. “If the average IT team is spending 11.5 hours each week resolving connectivity issues, then every hour removed from troubleshooting can be redirected toward higher-value work such as AI enablement, cloud modernization, security hardening, and user experience improvement. And smaller companies are being disproportionately burdened with connectivity challenges. By moving critical traffic away from best-effort Internet paths and onto private, direct network interconnection, DE-CIX helps organizations create more predictable routes between users, applications, clouds, and data environments.”
Through direct connectivity via Cloud and AI Exchanges like those operated by DE-CIX, enterprises can centralize management and simplify connectivity to cloud and network partners, reduce reliance on the public Internet, and gain better control over latency, reliability, security, and data flows. DE-CIX’s Cloud Exchange provides private connectivity to all the major global cloud service providers and many regional and specialist ones, while its service monitoring and insights capabilities give teams greater visibility into traffic behavior and service performance. In practical terms, direct network interconnection helps IT teams spend less time diagnosing fragmented routes, unpredictable performance, and cloud-to-cloud complexity, and more time ensuring that AI and cloud workloads perform as the business requires
Survey highlights
- 96% of respondents are confident their organizations network infrastructure will support future cloud and AI initiatives.
- IT teams spend an average of 11.5 hours every week resolving cloud connectivity issues.
- 49% spend more than 10 hours per week troubleshooting cloud connectivity issues.
- Downtime or reliability issues (26%), latency or slow performance between cloud environments (28%), and security vulnerabilities/DDoS (27%) are the leading cloud connectivity challenges.
- 61% already use private cloud connectivity, while a further 31% are actively considering deployment.
About the survey
The research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of DE-CIX among more than 400 IT and infrastructure decision makers in the United Kingdom and the United States, comprising 200 respondents in each market. Participants worked at organizations with 100 or more employees and held IT, cloud, or infrastructure roles. Fieldwork was conducted between 3 July and 8 July 2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), is a signatory to the Global Data Quality Pledge, and adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.
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