Across roughly 2,000 decision-makers in telecom, data center, and large enterprises, a strong majority doubts that existing infrastructure will keep up with AI’s next wave. In the US, most respondents expect network buildouts to lag AI investment and call out near-term priorities such as optimizing bidirectional data flows, expanding fiber capacity, enabling real-time training feedback, and placing low-latency compute closer to users. In Europe, most enterprise leaders say current networks are not ready for broad AI adoption; many already report latency, throughput, and resiliency pain as data demands rise. The common thread is clear: without accelerated modernization, networks risk becoming the bottleneck that constrains AI outcomes.