Latency for interaction with AI? For something the user use browsers and electron apps. A ping goes around the whole world before your pressed key is visible on the screen.
> A ping goes around the whole world before your pressed key is visible on the screen.
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but as someone who manages infrastructure which is literally on the opposite side of the planet (from me) RTT is long enough to be objectively horrible for anything interactive like typing over SSH. At least 250ms capital to capital for Europe to Oceania + last mile latency makes 300ms a more realistic minimum + actual processing time + client side rendering and it really starts to feel like a half second from the full human perspective... Under ideal conditions.
It's not just AI. Video streaming or game streaming both depend on close proximity to the end user, alone because the data volume would completely overwhelm backhaul links... that's why Youtube, Netflix and a lot of CDNs all have colo facilities close to major population centers and their regionally dominant ISPs.
It can be significantly cheaper to pay colo fees at an ISP' s data center than to pay interconnection fees for bulk transfers.
> Video streaming or game streaming both depend on close proximity to the end user
That's a straw man for this discussion. Yes, there will be a need to place some DCs close to users, but most of them could be located closer to energy production, attached to a backbone network, and the vast majority of customers would not suffer any degradation of service from it.
Are they more playable if the server is in the nearest coast compared to the middle of the US? If you're in the US, for something like AI inference, then RTT within the continental US is probably reasonable. Similar is likely true through most of Europe.
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but as someone who manages infrastructure which is literally on the opposite side of the planet (from me) RTT is long enough to be objectively horrible for anything interactive like typing over SSH. At least 250ms capital to capital for Europe to Oceania + last mile latency makes 300ms a more realistic minimum + actual processing time + client side rendering and it really starts to feel like a half second from the full human perspective... Under ideal conditions.