AI adoption accelerates across Asia Pacific, strategic data management remains key: New Digital Realty study

Robust and sustainable infrastructure essential to maximize AI investments

SINGAPORE, Nov. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), the largest global provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions, today released the Asia Pacific findings of its 2024 Global Data Insights Survey, highlighting a significant surge in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among enterprises in the region. The report is aimed at gaining insights into how enterprises are creating business strategies and redesigning legacy IT infrastructures to support their AI ambitions and goals.

The survey of 2,000 IT leaders across 21 countries including Australia, India, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea found that although many enterprises in Singapore (46%), South Korea (66%), and Hong Kong (45%) rate themselves as mature in AI adoption, only a quarter of enterprises in the region consider their current AI use to be transformative. This suggests a strong need for greater investment in digital infrastructure to unlock AI's full potential.

IT leaders across Asia Pacific acknowledge the essential role of strategic data management in effectively unlocking the full value of AI. The survey revealed that 65% of companies in the region are actively executing a formal data strategy for their current or planned IT locations, with 77% of Asia Pacific companies adopting a distributed data approach to tackle data gravity challenges.

72% of enterprises are incorporating data location strategies into their AI plans, allowing them to place high-density storage and processing capacity in key locations to maximize AI's performance. Additionally, 56% plan to expand their infrastructure in one to five more locations within the next two years. This expansion will enable adherence to data sovereignty regulations, and allow them to scale AI workloads crucial for their future digital infrastructure plans.

As organizations prioritize data-driven initiatives, further investment in digital infrastructure is necessary to fully harness the potential of AI. Infrastructure hurdles continue to impede the success of AI investments in the region, with over half (56%) of Asia Pacific enterprises lacking the digital infrastructure required for both data and AI success.

Key infrastructure challenges include:

• Insufficient data storage for large AI datasets (64%)
• Inadequate computational power for AI processing (55%)
• Ensuring reliable connections to distributed data sources (49%)

To achieve data and AI success, IT leaders in Asia Pacific emphasize the need for data center providers to enable secure data exchange between users, networks, clouds, and IT providers on a single data center platform. Key requirements they shared include:

• Infrastructure capable of managing AI's power and energy demands for data storage, processing, and hosting (51%)
• Proximity of high-performing AI workloads to data and users (46%)
• Compliance with AI and data privacy regulations (45%)

Sustainability is also a top priority in Asia Pacific, with 59% of respondents stating that their sustainability goals are the most important factor impacting AI strategy.

Serene Nah, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific for Digital Realty, commented, "In Asia Pacific, the race to harness AI's power is accelerating. Businesses are realizing that AI is not just a buzzword, but a strategic imperative for driving innovation and growth. The key to success lies in a data-centric infrastructure that can seamlessly integrate data from various sources, deliver high-performance computing, and ensure robust connectivity. By prioritizing sustainability and leveraging cutting-edge technologies, organizations can unlock the full potential of AI while minimizing environmental impact."

About Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

About the Global Data Insights Survey
Online survey of 34 questions conducted between October 30 and December 4, 2023, with targeted respondents in companies ranging from sub-$100 million small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to multinational corporations with over $1 billion in annual revenue, from 21 countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.

For Additional Information

Media Contacts
Sin Huay Ho
Digital Realty
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Investor Relations
Jordan Sadler / Jim Huseby
Digital Realty
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Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially, including the company's strategy, the Asia-Pacific market, sustainability program and goals, the role of artificial intelligence, expected growth in digital transformation, and customer demand. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports and other filings by the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.