---
title: Mother Earth, Motherboard
description: Here's a recap of Alan Mauldin’s presentation from PTC 2025.
image: https://resources.telegeography.com/hubfs/2025/Blog%20Assets/AdobeStock_116628577-1.jpeg
---
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# Mother Earth, Motherboard
##### By [Alan Mauldin,](https://resources.telegeography.com/author/alan-mauldin) Feb 26, 2025
[Events](https://resources.telegeography.com/tag/events)
A few weeks ago, I returned to sunny Honolulu for TeleGeography’s annual telecom trends workshop at [PTC](https://www.ptc.org/ptc25/).
As usual, Brianna Boudreau explored [global pricing trends](https://resources.telegeography.com/from-clickbait-to-reality-a-deep-dive-into-global-pricing-trends), and Jon Hjembo shared [insights from the data center world](https://resources.telegeography.com/evaluating-interconnection-market-health).
A bit unusual was the name of my segment: Mother Earth, Motherboard. This title was actually inspired by [an article](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/) written in 1996:
*This clip explains the vision.*
Running with this theme, I also used AI to create an image for each section of my presentation:
Global Climate Change looks particularly intimidating, so let's jump there. (You’ll find my slides from Cycles of Renewal and A Resilient System [over here](https://www2.telegeography.com/ptc-2025).)
### Global Climate Change
### Evolution
How AI is going to impact international networks is a hot, hot topic these days.
And the truth is, no one really knows what AI will mean for long-haul networks. No one can tell you it will lead to X percent more bandwidth growth over X years—that is unknown at this stage.
What we *can* do is discuss how AI works and what could influence the pace of bandwidth growth, such as:
- Model training locations
- Inference locations
- Distributed training and federated learning
- AI-based data compression and traffic routing improvements
- Spatial temporal load shifting
- Legal issues
[](https://www2.telegeography.com/ptc-2025)
#### Alan Mauldin
Alan Mauldin is a Research Director at TeleGeography. He manages the company’s infrastructure research group, focusing primarily on submarine cables, terrestrial networks, international Internet infrastructure, and bandwidth demand modeling. He also advises clients with due diligence analysis, feasibility studies, and business plan development for projects around the world. Alan speaks frequently about the global network industry at a wide range of conferences, including PTC, Submarine Networks World, and SubOptic.
[View Alan Mauldin Work](https://resources.telegeography.com/author/alan-mauldin)
## Explore Related Content
###### Blog
Feb 16, 2023
#### [The Decline of a U.S.-Centric Global Network](https://resources.telegeography.com/the-decline-of-a-us-centric-global-network)
Twenty years ago, the United States was very much at the center of the global internet. In 2003, 98% of...
[View More by Alan Mauldin](https://resources.telegeography.com/author/alan-mauldin)
[Read Full Article](https://resources.telegeography.com/the-decline-of-a-us-centric-global-network)
###### Blog
Oct 3, 2022
#### [Gloomy Economic Indicators… Scary Future for the Subsea Cable Industry?](https://resources.telegeography.com/gloomy-economic-indicators-scary-future-for-the-subsea-cable-industry)
Some pretty ominous headlines have been circulating around the world lately regarding the risk of a...
[View More by Alan Mauldin](https://resources.telegeography.com/author/alan-mauldin)
[Read Full Article](https://resources.telegeography.com/gloomy-economic-indicators-scary-future-for-the-subsea-cable-industry)
###### Blog
Jun 13, 2019
#### [Are New Cables Avoiding Landing in the UK Because of Brexit?](https://resources.telegeography.com/are-new-cables-avoiding-landing-in-the-uk-because-of-brexit)
Is it true that new cables are avoiding landing in the UK because of the Brexit vote? I was curious to...
[View More by Alan Mauldin](https://resources.telegeography.com/author/alan-mauldin)
[Read Full Article](https://resources.telegeography.com/are-new-cables-avoiding-landing-in-the-uk-because-of-brexit)
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