Careers in Networking allow for innovation and long term career growth?

I've been dabbling in a Networking computer engineering like job. Not anything like a technician or setting up equipment, but more actual engineering with writing code for both hardware circuits (RTL) and software applications (Python/C++) to support running a cloud.

Before this, I was involved in cache controller design (just RTL) in a processor for a big named company.

So far, I'm seeing Networking is primarily "old" technology. Meaning it is steeped in a lot of history/standards and I feel like opportunities for new innovation aren't as there vs. some other fields involving machine learning, AR/VR, or AI. I don't think it's a bad field press in terms of maintaining a career, just wondering how others feel. If I start delving into more Networking architecture, is this good for the long term>