March 19, 2026

The Edge and AI Inferencing | TG Explains AI

1 hour

This episode features Hunter Newby, a veteran of the telecom industry with experience spanning from LDDS WorldCom to building carrier hotels and neutral internet exchange points.

Newby discusses how AI inferencing is reshaping network infrastructure requirements and why geography still matters in the internet age.

Key topics covered:

Low-latency inferencing: Why AI applications require a fundamental shift from the old CDN model to distributed, proximity-based network architecture with deterministic routing in sub-millisecond "latency zones"

Internet exchange gaps: How many U.S. states lack even a single neutral internet exchange point, forcing local traffic to backhaul hundreds of miles and creating economic development barriers

Connected Nation Internet Exchange Points (CNIXP): Newby and Connected Nation are building purpose-built internet exchange points in underserved markets (125+ cities identified) to support enterprise needs and AI workloads, starting with aerospace companies like Airbus and Boeing.

Beyond the data center: Why the industry needs to shift focus from power-first mega data centers to network-first interconnection facilities that enable local traffic exchange and support emerging AI use cases

Premium routing opportunity: How carriers can move beyond commoditized transit pricing by offering guaranteed low-latency routing to specific zones—the "FedEx model" for data delivery

From this episode: Akamai Boosts Inference With ‘Thousands’ of Nvidia Blackwell GPUs

Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast

TeleGeography Resources: https://resources.telegeography.com/

Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

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By TeleGeography

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