Over 40% of IT Leaders Doubt Their Digital Infrastructure Is Prepared to Accommodate Coveted AI Technology

85% Of Businesses Pursue AI Benefits, Prioritize Infrastructure Development

A new survey conducted by Equinix has revealed that over 40% of IT leaders globally believe that their current IT infrastructure is not ready enough to handle the demands of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This is quite a concerning figure given the fact that AI is widely used across different industries. The survey focused on how IT leaders are responding to AI advancements in their respective organizations and was conducted after a year that witnessed significant breakthroughs in AI technology. AI technology is now being rapidly deployed in various business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications.

According to Senior Technologist at Equinix, Kaladhar Voruganti, technology leaders around the world are speeding up the process of incorporating AI into their companies. This is because it is becoming more and more important to have intelligent and self-governing systems in order to operate a contemporary business. Anybody who doesn't take full advantage of AI may end up lagging behind.

According to the Equinix Global Tech Trends Survey, there is a considerable interest in embracing artificial intelligence (AI) across different industries. However, more than 40% of IT leaders who participated in the survey expressed their reservations about their digital infrastructure's capacity to facilitate the technology. This highlights a concern regarding the ability of the current technological systems to support AI implementation effectively in various sectors. The Tech Trends survey is an insightful assessment of the technological landscape that acknowledges the challenges that IT leaders face in ensuring effective adoption of AI.

The study showed that more and more companies from all business areas are adopting artificial intelligence (AI). 85% of the 2,900 IT leaders interviewed globally are interested in reaping the benefits of AI and intend to utilize it in several important areas. The most popular areas for implementing AI or contemplating doing so is in IT operations (85%), then cybersecurity (81%), and customer experience (79%).

Voruganti said that accurate AI models need fast and secure access to both internal and external data sources. These sources may be spread throughout different clouds and data brokers. For example, when companies create their own private generative AI solutions, they may want their confidential data to be processed securely with access to external data sources and AI models. Additionally, since more data is being generated at the edge, AI processing needs to move to the edge for privacy, cost, and performance reasons. To meet these requirements, tech leaders can use hybrid solutions where AI model training and inference take place in different locations. To build scalable AI solutions, companies must consider if their IT frameworks can handle the massive and diverse data sets needed for ingestion, sharing, storage, and processing while keeping sustainability in mind.

Aengus Tran, the CEO and Co-Founder of harrison.ai, shared his thoughts on the implementation of sophisticated AI techniques. He emphasized the significance of securing the hosting of their compute and data storage platforms, which is their most critical technical objective. This is essential as they create AI solutions for healthcare professionals around the world. To handle immense data sets that they use to train and develop these AI solutions, harrison.ai relies on a fast and direct connection that facilitates hybrid cloud models. Their digital infrastructure helps them tackle more significant healthcare challenges, such as medical imaging solutions and novel AI healthcare solutions that require more data and processing. By doing so, they aim to elevate the standard of global healthcare and impact one million lives every day.

EMEA's IT leadership seems to be the group most uncertain about whether or not their current infrastructure can handle the demands of artificial intelligence, with 49% expressing doubt. On the other hand, IT leaders in the Asia-Pacific region were slightly less unsure, with 44% expressing concern, while those in the Americas seemed the most confident, with only 32% expressing doubts about their infrastructure's AI capabilities.

The survey showed that IT teams need to learn and work together in order to make the most of digital infrastructure updates. About 37% of those adding to their IT teams are looking for experts in AI and machine learning.

You can access the complete report by clicking this link.

The researchers of this survey, who were hired by Equinix, questioned over 2,900 individuals who make decisions in the field of information technology (IT). These individuals work in various companies across the world, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and the United States in the Americas; Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea in the Asia-Pacific; and Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United Kingdom (UK) in EMEA. They were chosen to participate by an online panel hosted by Dynata. The survey took place between March 20, 2023 and April 07, 2023, with all responses collected online.

Equinix, which is listed on the Nasdaq as EQIX, is a company that provides digital infrastructure services. Their trusted platform is used by leaders in the digital industry to quickly and efficiently bring together essential infrastructure. Equinix gives organizations access to the right places, partners, and opportunities to grow their business with flexibility. They help businesses speed up the launch of digital services, provide world-class experiences, and increase their value, while also supporting their sustainability goals.

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