Data Center Trends to Watch in 2026

As AI data centers—and the AI data center’s business model—grow increasingly complex, the right choice of cabling infrastructure can make all the difference. AI data centers face immense pressure to perform efficiently in spite of rising fiber density, so which is the better option—point-to-point or structured cabling?

Hyperscale AI data centers are outgrowing available space and power resources. How can they keep growing to serve rising demand? By scaling across multiple discrete locations via specialized fiber infrastructure. Scaling across builds in resilience, efficiency and performance by distributing the load across a campus, a city or even the world.

With the rapid pace of evolution in AI data center technologies, how can an operator build a solid foundation for the long term? Future-readiness depends on cooling, power consumption and scalability in the fiber in the physical layer that keeps the data center humming. Here are some key factors to consider when building for today—and tomorrow.

It’s the battle of data center protocols, and the result will impact data center design for years to come. These two competing protocols bring their own advantages and disadvantages, but in an AI factory, which is the stronger contender? 

Generative AI (GenAI) data centers are racing against time to expand in order to meet growing demand. Deployment schedules are getting shorter and fiber network density is getting higher. With the right choice of fiber infrastructure—and the right partner—GenAI data centers can deploy more quickly and flexibly and get to turn-up faster.

Chromatic dispersion in fiber optics can distort signals in data center links—limiting bandwidth and revenue performance. It’s caused by microscopic variations in the fiber’s materials, but it can be overcome with the right approach. As 200G lanes give way to 400G lanes, a solid dispersion mitigation strategy is more important than ever.