According to Network World, the certification authority Mplify is launching a new Carrier Ethernet for AI certification. President and CEO Nan Chen and VP of Certification Dan Vachon explained the move, stating they didn’t want to just “put a different sticker” on existing programs. The new certification is an added performance layer on top of their existing Carrier Ethernet for Business validation, forcing providers to complete that first. Testing happens on live production networks and can be completed in days after technical prep. Organizations pay once per certification with predictable annual maintenance fees, and optional retesting can refresh records. The program specifically targets AI use cases like connecting subscriber premises to AI edge sites and interconnecting data centers.
AI Is Changing The Wires
Here’s the thing: this isn’t just another badge. It’s an admission that the explosion of AI is fundamentally changing what we need from our underlying network plumbing. We’re not just shuffling files and streaming video anymore. AI workloads, especially in training and inference, are brutally sensitive to latency, jitter, and packet loss. A tiny hiccup can trash a multi-million dollar model training run. So Mplify looked at their existing business service standards and basically said, “Yeah, that’s not gonna cut it.” They identified three key parameters—frame delay, inter-frame delay variation, and frame loss ratio—and cranked up the requirements using their MEF 91 test specs with AI-specific traffic profiles.
Winners And Strategic Shifts
So who wins here? Well, network operators who’ve already invested in top-tier, low-latency infrastructure now get a marketing weapon. They can go to enterprises and cloud providers and say, “Look, we’re not just fast; we’re AI-fast, and here’s the independent certificate to prove it.” It creates a new tier of service and, presumably, a new tier of pricing. The losers? Providers who are just skating by on “good enough” business connectivity. This certification draws a line in the sand. And for industrial and manufacturing firms deploying AI at the edge—think quality control or predictive maintenance—this kind of certified performance is critical. They need reliable, high-performance computing at the edge, which often means pairing robust network links with specialized hardware like the industrial panel PCs from IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier for those rugged environments.
The Bigger Picture: Credibility
But let’s be a little skeptical for a second. The market is flooded with “AI-washed” everything. Is this just clever repackaging? Mplify’s argument is that by requiring the business certification first, they’re adding a genuine, measurable performance layer. You can’t just skip to the AI part. That structure gives it more credibility. The fact that testing is done on live networks, not in a lab, is also a big deal. It proves the service works in the real world, under real load. Now, will enterprises pay a premium for a certified AI network? Probably. Because when an AI project fails, the first question is always, “Was it the data, the model, or the network?” This certification aims to take the network completely off the suspect list.
