Data Story: The power of hybrid cloud and AI

In less than a year, generative AI has become a top strategic priority for enterprises around the world. And as industries deploy generative AI for customer service, coding, automation, and many other business cases, they recognize that this transformative technology requires huge volumes of data, massive computing power, advanced security architecture, and rapid scalability—all the proven advantages of hybrid cloud.

68% of hybrid cloud users have a formal, organization-wide policy or approach for the use of generative AI.

However, many of the roadblocks that once slowed down hybrid cloud adoption stand in the way of fully implementing generative AI. For example, 45% of executives that work on cloud initiatives indicate concerns about cybersecurity and confidentiality of data and information when adopting generative AI. An additional 61% of these cloud leaders highlight security or compliance concerns as reasons for moving specific workloads from public clouds to private clouds or on-premises data centers.

Addressing concerns about security and compliance

A global snapshot of security concerns is revealing. In Asia, 43% of executives that work on cloud initiatives in Singapore expressed a high level of security concerns in 2022, and this level of concern grew to 68% in 2023. And in Europe, 71% of these cloud executives in Germany reported security concerns in 2023, up 25 percentage points in only one year.

Along with addressing security concerns related to generative AI adoption, enterprises will have the opportunity to discover and deploy the wide range of benefits this AI technology brings to threat detection and security automation.

42% of global decision makers say they use cloud to help deploy, track, and manage sustainability goals internally.

Tackling sustainability and workforce upskilling challenges

Generative AI is the latest, but not the only, consideration enterprises have for their cloud agenda. A robust cloud infrastructure is also essential for managing sustainability initiatives across organizations and their broader ecosystems. In fact, more than a third of global leaders—36%—that use cloud to manage sustainability goals internally or for third parties say that technology will have the largest impact on their sustainability strategy.

Hybrid cloud is critical to adopting generative AI and helping enterprises achieve their sustainability objectives, but having enough employees with the requisite cloud skills continues to impede progress. On average, 58% of global decision makers say that cloud skills remain a considerable challenge. This points to the need for increased upskilling efforts that will allow more employees to use and benefit from hybrid cloud and generative AI tools and technologies.

Download the data story and learn how to combine the promise of generative AI with the power of hybrid cloud to accelerate transformation, while supporting security, sustainability, and workforce development goals.