By Bruce Bennie, Vice President & General Manager, Australia & New Zealand at Juniper Networks
2024 saw a rapid adoption in AI and sustainable innovation as more businesses looked to better streamline operations, transform customer experiences and optimise energy consumption. As we look ahead to 2025, we can expect continued focus on further refining these developments to meet the growing demands for high-speed, efficient and resilient connectivity across the networking landscape. AI will continue to be a driving force, influencing not only how businesses can increase productivity but also reshaping strategies. From integrated network and security operations to advancements in AIOps, 800G networking, and energy optimisation, the future of networking will prioritise automation, predictive intelligence, and sustainability.
Here are six key trends that will shape the networking industry and redefine how businesses operate in the digital era.
1. Network and security operations will increasingly be integrated. In today's fast-paced business environment, improving team integration and productivity is critical to reducing security risks and accelerating operational agility. According to research,Australia's network security market is projected to grow by 9.94% between 2024 and 2029, reaching an estimated value of USD 362.60 million by 2029. Seamless team integration across network, security and, in many instances, DevOps, ensures that all members are aligned with the organisation's goals, fostering a culture of collaboration and communication. Throughout 2025, advancements surrounding ops integration and the demand for them will increase as organisations grow more aware of how critical integration is to improve the outcomes of tasks from simple Day 0 deployment to ongoing security incident resolution and response.
3. Surge in 800G Networking In 2025, we expect a notable increase in the deployment of 800G networking, driven by global industry’s mounting need for higher bandwidth and lower latency. The embrace of 800G technology is poised to be a strategic response to cater to the expanding array of data-heavy applications and services, demanding ultra-fast and elevated experiences. Cloud providers, telecom operators and data centers are anticipated to spearhead this progression, bolstering their capacities to efficiently process intricate, large-scale data. The primary applications of 800G networking are projected to span core, peering, data center interconnect, data center edge, edge aggregation and AI data center networking.
4. The Future of Networking Services Shifts to AI-driven, Automated and Predictive Solutions A recent Juniper Networks research suggests that 70% of organisationhave mostly completed or fully implemented AI. In the networking industry, the future of services and support is accelerating toward a more automated, self-service and AI-driven experience, with Service Providers increasingly focused on delivering the ultimate customer experience. Support services are evolving toward AIOps-guided models, advancing from proactive to predictive support with automated incident detection and self-healing capabilities. This evolution is set to reshape customer experiences and interactions, delivering streamlined, resilient and highly responsive AI-powered services.
5. As AI continues to grow, there will be a rise in on-premises AI deployments and hybrid cloud models According to IDC, enterprise investment in AI data center switching equipment will grow to USD $1B by 2027 with a CAGR of 158%. Companies will increasingly need to find the right balance between hyperscale, enterprise and edge data centers by assessing workload-specific demands. Hyperscale DCs will continue to power large-scale data processing and storage, while enterprise and edge DCs will be essential for data privacy, latency-sensitive, real-time applications. Building AI data centers is a cost-effective optionto offset the premium of the public cloud and that building Ethernet-based AI fabrics further reduces hard dollar costs, using existing in-house expertise for fast deployments.
6. New tools and capabilities will emerge to optimise energy consumption and cooling demands, with a shift to nuclear for reliable power. Leveraging AI and automation will be crucial in this shift, allowing data centers to continuously monitor, analyse and adjust energy consumption patterns in real time. Through predictive maintenance, dynamic load balancing and AI-driven cooling systems, data centers can minimise energy waste, reduce costs, and bring down their overall carbon footprint in practical, measurable ways.