AI-driven data to propel cloud storage growth

Existing data storage methods will not be enough to keep up with demand, reveals a Seagate-commissioned survey.

According to a survey commissioned by Seagate Technology, 61% of companies surveyed stated that they expect their cloud-based storage to grow by more than 100% over the next three years. These companies are already using the cloud as their leading storage medium.

The survey by global Recon Analytics sampled more than 1,000 business decision-makers who actively work in a storage infrastructure role with companies reporting more than US$10 million in annual revenue and that have already adopted AI or plan to adopt AI within the next three years.

The increased storage requirements are expected to see growth for both cloud and on-premises storage. The survey also revealed that cloud storage is expected to remain the main storage vehicle for AI with 65% of data stored in the cloud versus in-house in 2024 and increasing to 69% by 2028.

At the same time, 46% of respondents believe that existing data storage methods will not be enough to keep up with demand. Looking at Singapore, 53% of the respondents expect their organization’s cloud-based storage to increase by more than 100% by 2028, compared to 61% globally.

Additional data storage solutions are being adopted to manage the increasing file sizes and quantity generated by AI including 61% expanding usage of cloud storage solutions, 55% upgrading existing infrastructure, 56% adopting enhanced data management software and 49% implementing data compression techniques.

For Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst of Recon Analytics, with the survey results generally pointing to a coming surge in demand for data storage, hard drives are emerging as the clear winner.

While the cloud does provide the flexibility businesses need to run their AI workloads, when it comes to storage, businesses will want to have longer data retention to improve the quality of AI. This is where physical storage on hard drives would fit best for businesses.

“When you consider that the business leaders we surveyed intend to store more and more of this AI-driven data in the cloud, it appears that cloud services are well-positioned to ride a second growth wave,” he said.

In Singapore, 85% of Singapore businesses who’ve adopted AI technology believe longer data retention improves the quality of AI outcomes. 88% of respondents who use AI today also believe adoption of Trustworthy AI requires an increased need to store more data for longer periods of time. Singapore is on par with 90% of respondents agreeing with the statement.

“Trustworthy AI is really the key to enabling mainstream adoption of AI,” said BS Teh, Chief Commercial Officer of Seagate.

With storage data being the backbone of trustworthy AI, Seagate believes that the use of Network SSDs as a performance gasket can help connect hard drives to the local SSD layer and help data move around the ecosystem.

According to Seagate, hard drives are the primary enablers of data needing longer term storage and data protection. They help maintain the outcomes of AI content creation, securely storing the generated content, so it can be accessed when needed. They also provide the scalability needed to handle increasing data volumes efficiently.

“With the vast majority of survey respondents saying they need to store data for longer periods of time to improve quality outcomes of AI, we’re focused on areal density innovation needed to increase storage capacity for each platter in our HAMR-based hard drives. We have a clear pathway to more than double per-platter storage capacity over the next few years,” added Teh.

The survey also revealed that after security, storage ranks as the second most important component of AI infrastructure globally. This is followed by data management, network capacity, compute, regulations, LLM viability and energy.