The scale of data center investment in 2026 is unlike anything the industry has seen before. U.S. businesses invested $44.7 billion in data centers in Q1 2026 alone — a 28% year-over-year increase — while hyperscalers including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have collectively committed over $500 billion to AI infrastructure this year. To put that in perspective: the entire U.S. Interstate Highway System cost roughly $530 billion in today’s dollars and took decades to build. The data center industry will spend nearly twice that in a single calendar year.

In this interview, Hot Telecom founder and CEO Isabelle Paradis sits down with Crosslake Fibre CEO Mike Cunningham to unpack what this investment surge means for network infrastructure, dark fibre demand, and the operators building the backbone that makes it all possible.

What’s Driving the Boom

AI is the defining force behind this buildout. Global data center occupancy has reached a record 97%, and JLL has characterized the current environment as a $3 trillion capital supercycle driven by extreme power scarcity and rapid AI scaling. Nearly 100 GW of new data center capacity is anticipated to come online between 2026 and 2030 — effectively doubling global capacity in five years.

But compute alone doesn’t move data. Every new facility requires fibre. And as deployment accelerates from a handful of hyperscale campuses to distributed, latency-sensitive inference infrastructure across dozens of markets, the pressure on network providers has never been higher.

The Connectivity Gap

Building a data center is only half the equation. Connecting it — reliably, at speed, without legacy procurement delays — is where many operators are falling short. As Mike discusses in this interview, the operators winning in this environment are those who can move as fast as the buildout demands. That means direct infrastructure, no resellers, and network providers who own what they sell.

With Points of Presence across North America, the UK, and Europe, Crosslake Fibre is purpose-built for this moment — providing dark fibre, lit capacity, and ultra-low latency connectivity to the data centers, carriers, and hyperscalers driving the next era of digital infrastructure.

Key Themes Covered in This Interview

  • The scale and speed of 2026 data center investment
  • Why connectivity is now the critical bottleneck — not compute or capital
  • What hyperscalers and enterprise operators should demand from network providers
  • How dark fibre infrastructure is evolving to meet AI-era workloads

About Hot Telecom Hot Telecom is a leading independent research and advisory firm covering the global wholesale telecommunications industry. Founder and CEO Isabelle Paradis is one of the most respected voices in carrier and network infrastructure markets worldwide.