ZDNET’s key takeaways
- A brand new examine finds 62% of organizations are ill-prepared to deal with surging storage wants.
- Organizations should lean in to AI’s rising information calls for and infrastructure readiness.
- “Sustainable scaling” would be the key to optimizing AI progress, in line with Seagate’s examine.
Synthetic intelligence is forcing organizations to guage will increase in information storage like by no means earlier than, however lower than 40% of companies imagine their infrastructure is provided to deal with the growth, in line with new analysis from Seagate Expertise.
Seagate Expertise’s 2026 Information Infrastructure Readiness Report discovered that 99% of IT leaders anticipate AI to extend their group’s storage wants over the subsequent three years. In reality, 32% anticipate their storage demand will develop by greater than 50% because of AI.
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Regardless of this, solely 38% of organizations say they’re ready to fulfill AI’s rising information 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 expertise decision-makers throughout the US, China, India, the UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Recon Analytics carried out the analysis on behalf of Seagate throughout Might 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 information suggests a widening hole between the tempo of enterprise AI adoption and the underlying information infrastructure (i.e., storage) wanted to assist it. Lately, the AI dialog has stubbornly centered on computing energy. Now, companies and organizations throughout the globe are more and more encountering challenges in how information 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 information 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 larger charges than others, resembling compute availability (27%) and power constraints (24%).
AI will increase the worth of knowledge, nevertheless 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 important” returns on their AI investments, with one-third reporting “important measurable” returns.
As AI creeps into extra enterprise operations and setups, the info supporting these programs 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 reworking the seemingly fundamental part of storage right into a strategic ingredient of enterprise infrastructure.
And with extra storage comes the necessity for extra locations to accommodate it. In response to Seagate’s findings, investments in information facilities are transferring larger on group precedence lists. Simply over three out of 4 organizations (76%) ranked information 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 info heart debate is getting a whole lot of consideration, with fights towards information facilities popping up across the nation. Regardless, the business’s push for extra funding into storage will probably proceed, although it’s not the one issue stopping companies from feeling absolutely ready.
Immature AI methods, restricted budgets and sources, and information administration and governance challenges have been additionally recognized by survey respondents as important limitations to their group’s preparedness.
‘Sustainable scaling’
Whereas information 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 power are influencing how organizations form, plan, and broaden their AI infrastructure.
Of organizations surveyed, 77% mentioned that they had delayed or restructured AI infrastructure growth as a consequence of sustainability or power considerations, with 36% admitting that they had considerably revised growth plans consequently.
AI-associated power consumption was the highest environmental concern, with 52% of respondents indicating so, adopted by carbon emissions and power 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 inside the subsequent 5 years.
Seagate defines this crucial want for continued funding in information 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 constantly bettering the efficiencies of the infrastructure that helps it,” in line with 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 information, however capability alone won’t decide which organizations succeed. The report concludes that the defining issue might be every group’s “skill to maintain information obtainable and prepared to be used whereas effectively managing the infrastructure calls for that include progress.”
And whereas this work could already be underway for 38% of organizations, for many, the hole between being largely ready and absolutely ready stays broad.
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Seagate’s report signifies that closing this hole requires an infrastructure technique constructed across the “full information lifecycle.”
“Organizations want to know what information they are going to create, how shortly totally different workloads must entry it, how lengthy it could retain worth and which operational measures will information progress. These selections present the muse for sustainable scaling and for lasting worth from AI.”
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