AI‘s rapid expansion is fundamentally reshaping data centre infrastructure priorities, with a new report from Seagate revealing that 99 per cent of IT leaders anticipate increased storage requirements. This shift is elevating data centre investment and storage management to critical strategic concerns for enterprises, including those in India.The Seagate Data Infrastructure Readiness Report, based on a survey of 2,712 enterprise technology decision-makers across seven countries including India, highlights how businesses are preparing for wider AI deployment. The study found that 86 per cent of organisations have already seen moderate or significant return on investment from AI spending, with one-third reporting significant measurable returns. This commercial value is intensifying focus on the infrastructure needed to support AI at scale.Despite the high expectations for increased storage demand over the next three years, only 38 per cent of organisations reported being fully prepared for these long-term data requirements. More than half of respondents (53 per cent) identified data quality and readiness as a leading obstacle to AI deployment, while 43 per cent cited storage infrastructure challenges. These concerns ranked ahead of compute availability (27 per cent) and energy constraints (24 per cent), indicating that the bottleneck for scaling AI often lies in data storage, governance, and preparation rather than just processing power.Storage is also moving up the corporate agenda, with 76 per cent of respondents ranking data centre investment among their top three infrastructure priorities, and 20 per cent identifying it as their single highest investment priority. Furthermore, 98 per cent believe AI is transforming storage from a back-office function into strategic business infrastructure. This reflects a growing recognition that data quality, availability, and retention directly impact AI system performance and value extraction.Melyssa Banda, Senior Vice President of Edge Storage Business at Seagate, noted the growing pressure on infrastructure. “AI is reshaping the way organizations plan, build and operate infrastructure,” Banda said. “As data volumes grow, so does the value organisations can derive from the data. They need data infrastructure that helps them preserve, access and use more of that data over time. Sustainable Scaling is about making those infrastructure decisions more efficient, more durable and more connected to long-term data value.”The report also underscores the role of energy use and environmental concerns in infrastructure planning. Seventy-seven per cent of organisations reported delaying or restructuring AI infrastructure expansion due to sustainability or energy issues, with 36 per cent significantly altering their plans. AI-driven energy consumption (52 per cent) and carbon emissions (51 per cent) were cited as primary environmental concerns. Concurrently, 97 per cent agreed that extending infrastructure lifecycles significantly improves sustainability, and 94 per cent expect their storage operations to become more sustainable within five years.To address these challenges, organisations must evaluate their current data infrastructure readiness for anticipated AI-driven storage demands. They also need to review data centre investment priorities to ensure alignment with AI and sustainability goals, and assess and implement strategies for sustainable scaling of AI infrastructure, considering energy consumption and lifecycle extension.Banda emphasised that the next phase of AI deployment requires more than just capacity growth. “It will be defined by smarter infrastructure decisions on how effectively organisations scale, organize, retain and use the data that AI depends on,” she stated. “The companies that create lasting value from AI will be the ones that treat data infrastructure as a business strategy.”
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