Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty PhotosZDNET’s key takeaways
- A brand new research finds 62% of organizations are ill-prepared to sort out surging storage wants.
- Organizations should lean in to AI’s rising knowledge calls for and infrastructure readiness.
- “Sustainable scaling” stands out as the key to optimizing AI development, in response to Seagate’s research.
Synthetic intelligence is forcing organizations to guage will increase in knowledge storage like by no means earlier than, however lower than 40% of companies imagine their infrastructure is supplied to deal with the enlargement, in response to new analysis from Seagate Know-how.
Seagate Know-how’s 2026 Information Infrastructure Readiness Report discovered that 99% of IT leaders count on AI to extend their group’s storage wants over the subsequent three years. In actual fact, 32% anticipate their storage demand will develop by greater than 50% on account of AI.
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Regardless of this, solely 38% of organizations say they’re ready to satisfy AI’s rising knowledge calls for. That’s lower than 4 out of ten.
Seagate’s findings, revealed on September 14, are based mostly on a survey of two,712 enterprise know-how decision-makers throughout the US, China, India, the UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Recon Analytics carried out the analysis on behalf of Seagate throughout Could and June 2026. The survey aimed to look at respondents’ views on their organizations’ AI readiness, infrastructure funding, storage structure, infrastructure effectivity, sustainability, and long-term infrastructure planning.
The report’s knowledge suggests a widening hole between the tempo of enterprise AI adoption and the underlying knowledge infrastructure (i.e., storage) wanted to help it. In recent times, the AI dialog has stubbornly centered on computing energy. Now, companies and organizations throughout the globe are more and more encountering challenges in how knowledge sourced from AI is accessed, saved, retained, and commanded.
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Essentially the most generally reported problem to deploying AI amongst respondents is knowledge high quality and readiness, cited by 53% of respondents. The runner-up is storage infrastructure, cited by 43% of respondents. These two roadblocks are reported at considerably increased charges than others, akin to compute availability (27%) and vitality constraints (24%).
AI will increase the worth of knowledge, however it wants someplace to go
The elevated push for extra strong infrastructure arrives as some companies get hold of measurable returns from AI. Seagate’s report particulars that 86% of organizations are seeing “reasonable or vital” returns on their AI investments, with one-third reporting “vital measurable” returns.
As AI creeps into extra enterprise operations and setups, the information supporting these techniques is turning into a longer-term enterprise asset, and the business is aware of it. Almost each respondent of Seagate’s survey (98%) agreed that AI is remodeling the seemingly fundamental element of storage right into a strategic aspect of enterprise infrastructure.
And with extra storage comes the necessity for extra locations to accommodate it. In line with Seagate’s findings, investments in knowledge facilities are transferring increased on group precedence lists. Simply over three out of 4 organizations (76%) ranked knowledge facilities amongst their prime three infrastructure funding priorities, with one out of 5 even figuring out it as their single highest precedence.
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The information heart debate is getting loads of consideration, with fights towards knowledge facilities popping up across the nation. Regardless, the business’s push for extra funding into storage will seemingly proceed, although it’s not the one issue stopping companies from feeling totally ready.
Immature AI methods, restricted budgets and sources, and knowledge administration and governance challenges had been additionally recognized by survey respondents as vital obstacles to their group’s preparedness.
‘Sustainable scaling’
Whereas knowledge facilities and different types of AI infrastructure have ruffled the feathers of many cities, cities, states, and people, Seagate’s report signifies that sustainability and vitality are influencing how organizations form, plan, and broaden their AI infrastructure.
Of organizations surveyed, 77% stated that they had delayed or restructured AI infrastructure enlargement resulting from sustainability or vitality issues, with 36% admitting that they had considerably revised enlargement plans because of this.
AI-associated vitality consumption was the highest environmental concern, with 52% of respondents indicating so, adopted by carbon emissions and vitality use at 51%.
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Ninety-seven % of respondents additionally agreed that extending the usable lifecycle of infrastructure can enhance sustainability, and 94% anticipated their storage operations turning into extra sustainable throughout the subsequent 5 years.
Seagate defines this crucial want for continued funding in knowledge technique, authorities, and AI infrastructure as a brand new crucial, which thre firm calls sustainable scaling.
“Sustainable scaling is the flexibility to extend AI capability and enterprise worth whereas repeatedly enhancing the efficiencies of the infrastructure that helps it,” in response to the report. “As policymakers, regulators and the general public place extra scrutiny on the expansion of AI infrastructure, sustainable scaling will play a crucial position within the long-term viability of a sturdy and wholesome AI economic system.”
The underside line
Seagate anticipates that the subsequent part of AI will create extra knowledge, however capability alone is not going to decide which organizations succeed. The report concludes that the defining issue shall be every group’s “capacity to maintain knowledge accessible and prepared to be used whereas effectively managing the infrastructure calls for that include development.”
And whereas this work could already be underway for 38% of organizations, for many, the hole between being largely ready and totally ready stays vast.
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Seagate’s report signifies that closing this hole requires an infrastructure technique constructed across the “full knowledge lifecycle.”
“Organizations want to know what knowledge they may create, how shortly completely different workloads have to entry it, how lengthy it might retain worth and which operational measures will information development. These choices present the muse for sustainable scaling and for lasting worth from AI.”
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