IT Essentials: All roads lead to the datacentre

Argue about the route, but the destination is set

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The Roman Empire had roads. We have cables.

Back in the heady days of the Medieval period, there was a saying: All roads lead to Rome. Today the roads are more split, but they still lead to same place – conceptually, at least.

If you could avoid such delights as plague, famine, food poisoning, robbery, being burned for heresy and accidental death (“the friendly stab”), the medieval period wasn’t bad. Lots of fresh air, fine country living, and one of the most decadent empires the world has ever known springing up in Italy. And getting there was easy: just follow a road.

The well-known Roman penchant for road-building ensured that pretty much every paved street eventually led back to the capital, whether you were in Egypt, Turkey or Scotland (okay, a bit of wading was involved).

These days, roads aren’t the final word in infrastructure: that honour belongs to the physical media that form the internet. All roads lead to a datacentre – and if you’re a datacentre operator, all roads inevitably lead to AI.

Nowhere is that more glaring than in the upcoming 2026 release of our annual sustainability research, which this year looks at cloud through an AI lens. That meant re-evaluating the companies involved, with some surprising changes.

First, the big three – AWS, Microsoft and Google – are all still present, but Oracle joins them as a hyperscaler because of its massive AI investments. We also include significantly smaller AI native companies like Coreweave (yes, that one) and NScale, as well as neoclouds like OVHCloud, Nebius and Crusoe. And to top it all off, Meta is there as well because of its own AI infrastructure spend.

There are many routes to success in the tech industry, but if you’re even tangentially involved in infrastructure today, they all go via AI.

Although they know success relies on AI, IT leaders are coming around to the fact that not everybody is comfortable using it. We published a case study from bet365 and an interview with Met Office CAIO Kirstine Dale this week, both of whom reframed their approach to encourage adoption.

The tech industry outside artificial intelligence hasn’t slowed down – if anything, change is accelerating. Kerstin Stief of Computing Deutschland has written about the rise of compact fusion reactors, and John Leonard examines why post-quantum migration is harder than it looks.

John has also talked to leading cyber experts about initial access brokers – who are they, and how do they get away with selling our personal details for less than you would pay for your lunch?

And finally, we’ve looked at John Ternus, the engineer set to take the reins at Apple.