F E A T U R E
HOW AI IS FORCING A COMPLETE RETHINK OF GLOBAL DATA STORAGE INFRASTRUCTURE
AI is reshaping the future of data centres. With workloads scaling at unprecedented levels, traditional storage is no longer enough. In this article, VDURA CEO Ken Claffey explains why durability, lifecycle management and resilience are critical to the next wave of Digital Transformation and how organisations can prepare for AI’ s growing demands.
urging demand for AIready infrastructure is
S driving another massive wave of investment into the global data centre sector. According to McKinsey, AI has become‘ the key driver of growth in demand for data centre capacity’ with overall requirements predicted to‘ almost triple by 2030, with about 70 % of that demand coming from AI workloads’.
It’ s not just the likes of McKinsey who are making these big predictions. A study from the World Economic Forum( WEF) currently values the global data centre industry at US $ 242.7 billion – a figure which it expects to more than double by 2032 to around US $ 584 + billion.
Wherever you look, the underlying theme is the same: AI is transforming data centres into one of the world’ s fastestgrowing infrastructure markets.
The levels of investment required to meet global demand are eye-watering. McKinsey claims that in a scenario where‘ accelerated growth’ dictates demand, the sector will require almost US $ 8 trillion in global data centre capex by 2030. The largest share of this figure( US $ 3.1 trillion) is expected to be channelled into semiconductors, servers and storage – a truly remarkable prospect for the technology developers and hardware suppliers at the core of the compute ecosystem.
Out with the old
Taking storage as an example, to meet the performance demands of AI systems, organisations everywhere are re-examining their approach to storage architecture. This is not without its challenges – traditional solutions have clearly been geared towards
www. intelligentdatacentres. com 35