The Network as Nervous System: Connecting the AI Edge

MaiaEdge CEO and Co-founder Abilash Menon challenges a foundational assumption: existing network infrastructure can carry the weight of distributed AI workloads. He explains why agentic AI demands a federated, programmable fabric across carriers, operators, and data centers, not just faster pipes. What does sovereignty look like when agents run the network? 

In this Executives at the Edge episode, host Pascal Menezes explores these topics and more with Abilash Menon of MaiaEdge:

  • Why does distributed AI inference expose a “first mile” connectivity problem that centralized architectures were never built to solve?
  • How do training and inference workloads place fundamentally different demands on network fabric and latency?
  • What does federation actually require from operators, and where do automation and sovereignty fit in?
  • As agentic AI multiplies inter-service calls across decentralized infrastructure, what breaks first in today’s network model?
  • Why does the “middle” of the network, between fiber operators, carriers, and data centers, remain a programmability and visibility black box?
  • How will data sovereignty policies shape the way federated AI networks are built and governed across regions?

Learn More

  • Learn how Mplify’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration APIs enable automated, multi-domain service orchestration across the ecosystem.
  • Discover how NaaS supports AI-ready, programmable connectivity for distributed workloads
  • Explore how Mplify Certification validates performance and consistency across providers.

Executives at the Edge podcast is brought to you by Mplify, a global alliance of network, cloud, cybersecurity, and enterprise organizations working together to accelerate the AI-powered digital economy through standardization, automation, certification, and collaboration.

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