A new report from NetApp sheds light on the challenges and strategies for scaling artificial intelligence initiatives across enterprises. The IDC White Paper, sponsored by NetApp, found that having an intelligent data infrastructure is critical for responsibly scaling AI and generative AI workloads. The report introduces a maturity model assessing organizations' AI readiness, ranging from AI Emergents just starting out to AI Masters with advanced capabilities. It reveals that AI Masters optimize data infrastructure for easy access to datasets with minimal preparation across hybrid, multicloud environments.
However, even AI Masters face obstacles like infrastructure limitations (21%), compliance issues (16%), and insufficient data (17%). AI Emergents struggle with similar hurdles plus tighter budgets and business restrictions on data access. "Companies need intelligent data infrastructure to scale AI responsibly and boost success rates," said Jonsi Stefansson, NetApp's chief technology officer. He explained that flexible infrastructure enables integrated data management for security and optimization.
The study found AI Masters have instant availability of 48% of structured and 43% of unstructured data, compared to 26% and 20% for Emergents. Proper data governance is key, with 51% of Masters but only 3% of Emergents having standardized, rigorously enforced policies. Ritu Jyoti, IDC's AI research lead, noted dynamic AI data inputs require flexible unified storage architecture and seamless data access for developers.
Assessing resource efficiency when developing models is another maturity indicator, with 43% of Masters but just 9% of Emergents having standardized metrics across all AI projects.
As AI's impact grows, the report stresses optimizing storage and clearly defining efficiency metrics to scale initiatives responsibly. For more on this and other NetApp news, please visit Data Storage and Cloud Storage Newsroom | NetApp.
Want to stay in the know about Data Industry news? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!
Each Monday we will send out the top stories of the week straight to your inbox. Best part? It’s FREE, courtesy The Data Group News Service.
