andrew.gertz@t…
Tue, 11/10/2026 – 16:16
Learn how Thales and Equinix combine private interconnection with post-quantum-ready encryption to protect AI workloads and sensitive data across clouds.
Data Security
Cloud Security
Encryption Key Management
Stan Mesceda | Sr. Product Manager
More About This Author >
As AI and distributed infrastructure accelerate data movement, organizations must protect not only high-volume traffic but also long-life, high-value information that may remain sensitive for decades.Connectivity is becoming a question of trust, not just reach
AI is changing where data is created, processed and consumed. Training datasets may move between enterprise repositories and GPU clusters; inference services may depend on data distributed across cloud and edge locations. Data center interconnect also carries replication and recovery traffic between sites. But the challenge is not simply how much data moves or how fast: it is also what that data contains. Proprietary research, intellectual property, personally identifiable information (PII), sensitive government records, financial information and critical infrastructure data can retain significant value long after a particular transfer is complete.
This creates tension due to misaligned goals. The business expects flexibility to establish new connections and move workloads quickly, but security teams need to know how data is protected between endpoints, which policies apply and who controls the encryption keys. For regulated organizations, those questions become more complicated as traffic crosses cloud-provider and jurisdictional boundaries.
The long-term picture matters too. Some sensitive information must remain confidential for years or decades. With “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later”, adversaries capture and retain encrypted traffic today with the intent of exploiting the information in the future when quantum computing is available. The useful life and sensitivity of data, not just network volume, should shape encryption decisions and post-quantum migration priorities.
The opportunity is to treat private interconnection, encryption and operational control as complementary parts of a trusted connectivity model.
Why the old operating model struggles to keep pace
The first requirement is consistency. Different clouds, colocation environments and WAN segments often come with different networking infrastructure and security controls. An organization may be able to encrypt individual connections yet still struggle to maintain a coherent policy across the full journey of data. Security teams should ask where encryption begins and ends, how keys are governed and whether responsibilities for network routing and cryptographic administration can be separated.
The second requirement is responsiveness. A new AI workload, acquisition or disaster recovery location can change connectivity needs quickly. Deploying dedicated appliances in every location introduces procurement, shipping and installation steps that may not match the pace of software-defined infrastructure. Virtualized network functions offer another deployment option, particularly where infrastructure is needed close to cloud on-ramps and interconnection points.
Third, performance cannot be an afterthought. Data replication, analytics and AI pipelines can be sensitive to throughput, latency and network overhead. Encryption design therefore needs to protect high-volume traffic efficiently while applying appropriate safeguards to smaller flows containing especially sensitive or long-lived information.
Finally, sovereignty should be understood as more than physical data location. Organizations also need to consider who sets security policies, who can administer cryptographic keys and how data is protected as it travels between environments. Customer control over these elements can support governance objectives, though specific residency and compliance obligations still require assessment for each deployment.
These considerations point toward a practical principle, secure your critical data paths with best practices and independently validated solutions that can encrypt across a wide range of today’s modern infrastructures.
How Equinix and Thales bring the layers together
Equinix Fabric provides the software-defined interconnection layer. It enables private, on-demand connections between distributed enterprise infrastructure, cloud environments and service providers. Rather than treating every new connection as a separate physical-network project, organizations can provision and adjust virtual connectivity through a portal or APIs. This helps make interconnection
[…]
Content was trimmed to protect the source. Please visit the original article for the full text.
Read the original article:
Beyond Connectivity: Building Trust for AI, Sovereignty, and the Quantum Era