More than four in ten information technology (IT) leaders surveyed in Asia-Pacific (44 percent) believe their existing IT infrastructure is not fully prepared for the demands of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, despite its widespread adoption across industries, according to the Equinix 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey revealed on Wednesday.
The survey, which examined IT leaders’ responses to AI advances in their organizations, comes after a year of significant AI breakthroughs that saw the technology rapidly deployed in applications across both the business-to business and business-to-consumer sectors.
Despite significant appetite to implement AI, 42 percent of IT leaders said they are not very comfortable their infrastructure is capable of accommodating AI, and 41% doubted their team’s ability to implement the technology.
IT leaders in the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are the least confident in embracing AI, with 49 percent expressing at least some discomfort in their infrastructure and 47 percent in their team’s ability.
Confidence is higher in North, Central, and South America (AMER), where 32 percent have doubts over their infrastructure and 31 percent are not very comfortable with their team’s ability in accommodating AI.
Asia-Pacific respondents lean toward EMEA’s caution, at 44 percent and 45 percent, respectively.
As the world of digital continues to evolve at pace, IT leaders named several factors that would deter them from adopting a newer technology, such as AI.
An increase in operating expenditure (OPEX) costs was cited as the biggest issue (46 percent), followed by a lack of internal knowledge (42 percent), slow implementation (37 percent), and a negative impact on reputation (25 percent).
Across regions, perspectives on deterrents to technology adoption are similar.
The exception is in Europe, EMEA, where fewer IT leaders report concerns around large increases in Scope 1 or 2 emissions.
“The advancement of artificial intelligence is upon us. As AI capabilities and use cases continue to build in momentum, organizations that are not equipped to harness the power of AI will see themselves losing out on a substantial competitive advantage,” said Jeremy Deutsch, President, Asia-Pacific, Equinix.
The survey confirmed AI uptake is on the rise across all industry sectors, with 83 percent of the IT decision-makers polled in Asia-Pacific seeking to benefit from the advantages of AI and already using or planning to use it across multiple key functions.
Organizations are most likely to be using AI, or planning to do so, in IT operations (83 percent), followed by cybersecurity (81 percent), and customer experience (78 percent).
“Successful development of accurate AI models depends upon secure and high-speed access to both internal and external data sources that can be spread across multiple clouds and data brokers,” added Deutsch.
“For example, as enterprises embark on creating their own private generative AI solutions, they may want to process their confidential data at a private and secure location with high-speed access to external data sources and AI models,
“Through Equinix’s interconnected digital ecosystem and reliable digital infrastructure, we have dedicated ourselves to fast-tracking our customers’ and partners’ deployment of AI to meet their ambitions and maximize business value,” he added.
On implementing complex AI strategies, Aengus Tran, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at harrison.ai, noted that secure hosting of the firm’s compute and data storage platforms is its highest technical priority as it builds AI solutions for clinicians across the world.
“We rely on an extremely fast and direct connection to enable hybrid cloud models as required to move remarkably large data sets on which we train and develop our AI solutions,
“This digital infrastructure enables us to tackle bigger healthcare problems—from medical imaging solutions, to new AI healthcare solutions requiring more data and processing—helping to improve the standard of global healthcare and achieve our vision to impact one million lives per day,” he said.
According to the report, Asia-Pacific remains a strong and dynamic region projected to contribute around 70 percent of global growth in 2023.
Findings from the Equinix 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey echoes that with 80 percent of Asia-Pacific businesses planning to expand geographically in the next 12 months.