The cloud is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by AI and data sovereignty. At the heart of this evolution are data centers, which are proliferating, growing in size and complexity, and becoming increasingly distributed. As data centers expand, the network emerges as a vital component, rivaling the importance of compute, energy and cooling systems. This white paper delves into the impact of new business- and mission-critical demands on the network, both within and between data centers. It examines the critical role of the network in cloud evolution and the need for a seamless network-cloud continuum that delivers unparalleled performance, scalability and security.