AI-Driven Data Creation to Spur Cloud Storage Growth

According to a recent, global Recon Analytics survey ⁽¹⁾ commissioned by Seagate Technology Holdings plc, business leaders from across 15 industry sectors and 10 countries expect that adoption of AI applications will generate unprecedented volumes of data, driving a boom in demand for storage, in particular cloud-based storage.

With HDDs delivering scalability relative to terabyte-per-dollar cost efficiencies, cloud service providers rely on HDDs to store mass quantities of data. Recently, analyst firm IDC estimated that 89% of data stored by leading cloud service providers is stored on HDDs ⁽²⁾. According to this Recon Analytics study, nearly two-thirds of respondents (61%) from companies that use cloud as their leading storage medium expect their cloud-based storage to grow by more than 100% over the next 3 years.

“The survey results generally point to a coming surge in demand for storage, with HDDs emerging as the clear winner,” remarked Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst, Recon Analytics, Inc. “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.“

Key Findings:

• 72% surveyed say they use AI today.
• 61% of respondents who predominately use cloud storage say their cloud-based storage will increase by over 100% over the next 3 years.
• Storage ranks as the second most important component of AI infrastructure, with Security ranking #1.
  • In order of importance: Security, storage, data management, network capacity, compute, regulations, LLM viability, energy
• Of those businesses who’ve adopted AI technology, 90% believe longer data retention improves the quality of AI outcomes.
• 88% of respondents who use AI today believe adoption of Trustworthy AI requires an increased need to store more data for longer periods of time.

Survey results substantiate a trend toward organizations retaining data for longer periods of time to ensure data integrity needed to optimally train AI models. In order for AI innovation and adoption to continue, AI results and outcomes need to become increasingly accurate.

“Trustworthy AI is really the key to enabling mainstream adoption of AI,” said BS Teh, chief commercial officer, Seagate. “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 HDDs. We have a clear pathway to more than double per-platter storage capacity over the next few years.“

View the comprehensive survey results and analysis.

⁽¹⁾ The November 2024 survey sampled more than 1,000 business decision-makers who actively work in a storage infrastructure role with companies reporting $10+ million in annual revenue and that have already adopted AI or plan to adopt AI within the next 3 years. The survey results provide insights on the current impacts of AI application usage on infrastructure priorities as well as data retention and management dynamics. Results also explore respondents’ expectations for how increased AI adoption will impact infrastructure needs over the next 3 years.
⁽²⁾ According to the 2024 IDC Cloud Infrastructure Index report.