ZDNET’s key takeaways
- A new study finds that 62% of organizations are ill-prepared to address increasing storage needs.
- Organizations must adapt to the growing data demands and infrastructure readiness of AI.
- “Sustainable scaling” may be the key to optimizing AI growth, according to Seagate’s study.
Artificial intelligence is forcing organizations to evaluate the increase in data storage like never before, but less than 40% of businesses believe their infrastructure is equipped to handle the expansion, according to new research from Seagate Technology.
Seagate Technology’s 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report found that 99% of IT leaders expect AI to increase their organization’s storage needs over the next three years. In fact, 32% expect their storage demand to grow by more than 50% as a result of AI.
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Still, only 38% of organizations say they are ready to meet the growing data demands of AI. That’s less than four out of ten.
Seagate’s findings, published on September 14, are based on a survey of 2,712 enterprise technology decision makers in the US, China, India, the UK, Germany, France and Japan. Recon Analytics conducted the research on behalf of Seagate in May and June 2026. The survey aimed to examine respondents’ perspectives on their organizations’ AI readiness, infrastructure investment, storage architecture, infrastructure efficiency, sustainability and long-term infrastructure planning.
The report’s data suggests a growing gap between the pace of enterprise AI adoption and the underlying infrastructure (i.e. storage) needed to support it. In recent years, the AI conversation has stubbornly focused on computing power. Now companies and organizations worldwide are facing more and more challenges in how to access, store, retain and order the data coming from AI.
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The most commonly reported challenge to deploying AI among respondents is data quality and readiness, cited by 53% of respondents. The runner-up is the storage infrastructure, cited by 43% of respondents. These two roadblocks are reported at significantly higher rates than others, such as computer availability (27%) and energy constraints (24%).
AI increases the value of data, but it has to go somewhere
The increased push for more robust infrastructure comes as some businesses get measurable returns from AI. Seagate’s report shows that 86% of organizations are seeing “moderate or significant” returns on their AI investments, with a third seeing “significant measurable” returns.
As AI creeps into more business operations and setups, the data that supports these systems will become a longer-term business asset, and the industry knows it. Almost all respondents to the Seagate survey (98%) agreed that AI is transforming the seemingly basic component of storage into a strategic element of business infrastructure.
And with more storage comes the need for more places to house it. According to Seagate’s findings, investments in data centers are moving higher on organizational priority lists. Just over three in four organizations (76%) rank data centers among their top three infrastructure investment priorities, with one in five even identifying it as their single highest priority.
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The data center debate is getting a lot of attention, with fights against data centers around the country. Regardless, the industry’s push for more investment in storage is likely to continue, but it’s not the only factor preventing businesses from feeling fully prepared.
Immature AI strategies, limited budgets and resources, and data management and governance challenges were also identified by survey respondents as significant barriers to their organization’s readiness.
‘Sustainable Scaling’
While data centers and other forms of AI infrastructure have ruffled the feathers of many cities, towns, states and individuals, Seagate’s report shows that sustainability and energy are influencing how organizations shape, plan and expand their AI infrastructure.
Of the organizations surveyed, 77% said they have delayed or restructured AI infrastructure expansion due to sustainability or energy concerns, with 36% admitting to significantly revised expansion plans as a result.
AI-associated energy use was the top environmental benefit, with 52% of respondents indicating this, followed by carbon emissions and energy use at 51%.
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Twenty-seven percent of respondents also agreed that extending the useful life cycle of infrastructure can improve sustainability, and 94% predicted that their storage operations would become more sustainable within the next five years.
Seagate defines this critical need for continued investment in data strategy, government, and AI infrastructure as a new imperative, which the company calls sustainable scaling.
“Sustainable scaling is the ability to increase AI capability and business value while continuously improving infrastructure efficiency,” according to the report. “As policymakers, regulators and the public increasingly scrutinize the growth of AI infrastructure, sustainable scaling will play a critical role in the long-term viability of a robust and healthy AI economy.”
The bottom line
Seagate expects the next phase of AI to create more data, but capacity alone will not determine which organizations succeed. The report concludes that the defining factor is each organization’s ability to keep data available and ready for use while efficiently managing the infrastructure demands that come with growth.
And while this work is already underway for 38% of organizations, for most, the gap between mostly prepared and fully prepared remains large.
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Seagate’s report indicates that closing this gap requires an infrastructure strategy that is built around the “full data lifecycle.”
“Organizations need to understand what data they create, how quickly different workloads need to access, how long they retain value and what operational measures guide growth.
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