Reimagining ADCs for the AI-driven enterprise

F5 application delivery and security platform powers the next wave of intelligent, secure, and scalable AI workloads

Partner content AI adoption is no longer a pilot initiative; it's the new competitive frontier. But while starting an AI project is easy, scaling it securely and effectively is far more difficult. Enterprises across Asia Pacific are discovering that building AI capability at scale introduces new infrastructure, security, and data gravity challenges that legacy architectures were never designed to handle.

The application delivery controller (ADC), traditionally seen as a networking workhorse, is now being reimagined as a strategic enabler of AI transformation. At F5, we've evolved our ADC capabilities into the unified Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) designed to address the realities of modern, AI-enabled enterprise architectures. This shift reflects a broader truth: Infrastructure must now operate as a business enabler, not just a technical utility.

From load balancer to AI accelerator

Historically, ADCs were all about availability, load balancing, and traffic optimization. But as enterprises adopt microservices, APIs, and increasingly dynamic workloads powered by generative AI, ADCs are expected to do more. They must intelligently manage traffic, detect threats in real time, and enforce policy across hybrid and multi-cloud landscapes.

Real-time AI workloads, especially those built on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) or adaptive learning loops, expose new vulnerabilities like model theft, prompt injection, and data poisoning. F5's platform-neutral approach integrates full-lifecycle API security, identity-aware traffic management, and adaptive threat detection to safeguard these environments without compromising performance or agility.

Our customers are no longer just asking for throughput; They're demanding insights, visibility, and governance. ADCs, once buried deep in the infrastructure stack, are now at the frontlines of business risk and digital value.

Data gravity and the AI infrastructure problem

AI workloads tend to be compute-heavy, data-intensive, and latency-sensitive. Yet in the hybrid and multi-cloud deployments commonplace across the Asia Pacific market, data often resides far from compute resources, creating friction. This is the crux of data gravity.

The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform addresses this by converging networking, security, and compute-aware services into a programmable platform that bridges traditional infrastructure with emerging AI topologies. Rather than replacing legacy systems, we're enabling them to participate meaningfully in the AI journey.

For example, our AI Gateway capability allows customers to deploy inference services closer to the edge, integrate existing data stores without rearchitecting, and manage identity and traffic controls at a granular level. This supports the secure, low-latency AI deployments that are critical for industries like finance, healthcare, and public sector that must comply with local data residency regulations and face mounting regulatory scrutiny.

Beyond the network: unifying infrastructure and intelligence

We're seeing the convergence of infrastructure services once siloed, such as load balancing, WAF, DDoS protection, and API gateways, into unified platforms with AI-native capabilities. Our customers increasingly want:

• Integrated traffic and threat analytics
• Unified policy across environments
• Programmatic control planes for DevOps and SecOps
• Predictive defense against emerging threats

The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform gives organizations single-policy management, AI-powered anomaly detection, and context-rich observability. Whether running in a traditional datacenter, hyperscaler cloud, or sovereign AI environment, the experience is consistent and the control remains with the enterprise.

AI at the edge, security at the core

Asia's rapid adoption of edge AI spans smart cities, financial inclusion apps, and real-time video analytics. It is pushing security and performance requirements to the edge, prompting a rethink of where data is processed, how it's secured, and how policies are enforced in real time.

Our approach embeds encrypted traffic inspection, behavioral AI for fraud detection, and adaptive access control into the same pipeline as application delivery. This ensures AI workloads can operate efficiently at the edge while staying protected from zero-day threats and credential abuse.

Real-world impact from finance to healthcare

AI transformation is not abstract. In financial services, institutions are using AI for fraud detection and customer personalization. F5's telemetry and API governance capabilities help these institutions reduce false positives while maintaining compliance and performance SLAs.

According to the F5 State of Application Strategy Report Financial Services Edition, over 80% of financial organizations in our region have now embedded AI into core processes. ADCs are quietly enabling that transformation behind the scenes.

In healthcare, where connected medical devices, cloud-based diagnostics, and virtual care models are creating complex app ecosystems, F5 ensures that sensitive data and mission-critical services remain available, compliant, and secure.

Future-proofing the AI stack

Rather than mere traffic routers, modern ADCs they are the nervous system of digital operations. With programmable data planes, lifecycle automation, and embedded AI models for traffic and threat prediction, F5's ADSP is purpose-built to help enterprises scale securely into the AI era.

We recognize that digital transformation is about orchestration rather than just new tools. As strategic CTOs, our role is to bridge legacy investments with modern capabilities, manage across diverse environments, and guide our organizations through change. The ADC may have humble beginnings, but in the AI age, it's taking center stage as a platform for innovation, resilience, and control.

Contributed by F5.