Nearly all enterprise technology leaders expect artificial intelligence to increase their organizations’ storage requirements over the next three years, but fewer than four in ten say they are fully prepared. Seagate’s 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report, based on a survey of 2,712 decision-makers across seven markets, found that 99% of respondents anticipate higher storage needs. Only 38% said their organizations are fully prepared to support AI’s long-term data demands, though 83% described themselves as fully or mostly prepared. Nearly one-third expect storage requirements to rise by more than 50%. Data quality and readiness was cited as a deployment challenge by 53% of respondents, followed by storage infrastructure at 43%. That ranked ahead of compute availability at 27% and energy constraints at 24%. Energy and sustainability concerns have already led 77% of organizations to delay or restructure AI infrastructure expansion.
Nearly all enterprise technology leaders expect artificial intelligence to increase their organizations’ storage requirements over the next three years, but fewer than four in ten say they are fully prepared. Seagate’s 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report, based on a survey of 2,712 decision-makers across seven markets, found that 99% of respondents anticipate higher storage needs. Only 38% said their organizations are fully prepared to support AI’s long-term data demands, though 83% described themselves as fully or mostly prepared. Nearly one-third expect storage requirements to rise by more than 50%. Data quality and readiness was cited as a deployment challenge by 53% of respondents, followed by storage infrastructure at 43%. That ranked ahead of compute availability at 27% and energy constraints at 24%. Energy and sustainability concerns have already led 77% of organizations to delay or restructure AI infrastructure expansion.