We're truly in the age of AI. Once purely the domain of academic research or the stuff of science fiction, AI is now a true reality. Today's modern computing infrastructure has caught up. And, we hear regularly from GPU manufacturers, any company that isn't already exploring AI use cases will be left behind.

Yet, it's easier said than done. And while CIO's are being told to execute upon AI strategies, they're most certainly not being told, "AI at any cost." Pressures are mounting on the CIO who must innovate while keeping the lights running, the costs down, and the bad guys out.

New research from Pure Storage puts numbers on the problem, showing 96% of Australian IT leaders recognise the value of AI for transformation, while 84% believe AI-generated data will outgrow their data centre. 92% are concerned their infrastructure won't keep pace. 41% say cyber threats are a major risk. And 91% of CIOs and IT leaders in Australia say their greatest priority - above all else - must be reducing the organisation's risk profile. In fact, this was the highest out of all countries Pure Storage surveyed.

The research gives a great insight into the problems; happily, Pure Storage gives practical, actionable guidance to help make it through to the other side.

Pure Storage released its report this morning, "The Innovation Race: Reducing Risk and Navigating the AI Frontier for Future Success" following a global study involved 1,500 C-level and decision-maker respondents. The company has carved out the local numbers to shine a light on where Australian leaders stand.

The results reflect the grim reality that innovation doesn't simply happen; it balances on a stack of requirements and pre-requisites, while simultaneously holding back attackers. And it falls to the CIO to solve these problems, and make the innovation happen.

In fact, according to Pure Storage, 91% of IT leaders would rather spend the money on innovation that they currently dedicate to cybersecurity.

It's all a good pulse check on what's being discussed at the C-level in Australia, and Pure Storage area vice president - ANZ Amy Rushall noted, "Australian IT leaders are acutely aware of the challenges posed by their current infrastructure's ability to support AI, and many fear falling behind in the Innovation Race. This research is designed to help identify and address a wide range of risks beyond the obvious cyber threats, enabling a strategic balance between security and innovation. By tackling rising energy costs and evaluating AI readiness through a modernized infrastructure approach, Australian organizations can better position themselves to leverage AI for sustained success."

"Everyone is thinking about AI, which is no surprise," Rushall told iTWire, "but what's top of mind continues to be risk management. CIOs are focused on the risk in their business and how they can take care of that, above and beyond AI."

Globally, the report shows 82% of leaders are worried their business will be left behind. 84% believe AI-generated data is likely to outgrow their data centre. Nearly everyone agrees their organisation's infrastructure needs improvement.

Locally, 91% of Australian IT leaders say reducing risk is their top priority, and this was overwhelmingly higher than all other countries.

Rushall explained to iTWire there were several distinctive factors. These included cyberthreat concerns, management of multiple disparate systems, tech debt, rising cloud costs, rising energy costs, and global power shortages. Here too, Australia expressed higher concerns than other nations. "Risking energy costs are affecting all of Australia, not only IT," she said.

Pictured: Pure Storage area vice president - ANZ Amy Rushall

While countries like Singapore have restrictions on data centre construction, "in Australia we have more data centres per capita than any other country," Rushall said.

Ultimately, although every organisation surveyed - 100% - are planning, preparing, or currently adopting AI, it's clear IT leaders lack the time to innovate because they're continuously firefighting. "AI is innovative and they want to get started but have things to address first," Rushall said.

There's a clear consensus AI will be the primary driver of organisational transformation in the coming years, so it's a problem that definitely must be addressed.

Fortunately, Pure Storage has solid recommendations.

1. Understand all the risks to your business.
2. Address rising cloud and energy costs now.
3. Asses, with honesty, your organisation's AI readiness.
4. Establish a robust recovery plan with multi-tiered resiliency, immutable and indelible snapshots, and ultra-fast data recovery.

These aren't simply throw-away lines. Each recommendation is significant. In fact, much of it comes down to considering just where your data lives. With data growing at explosive rates, pressure continues to increase on cloud costs. If you're not already considering how to balance your data between cloud and on-premises, it's time you did.

In fact, moving some workloads "on-premises can save money and help with risk, and moving forward to having a better platform," Rushall said.

This all goes hand-in-hand with whether your organisation is AI ready, and whether you can recover data if your business goes down. It's a situation Pure Storage is well equipped to help with. "These are key things for us," Rushall said. "All of these things people are concerned by - risk, AI, energy - are addressed by our platform."

You might think of Pure Storage as simply a storage company. After all, why not? It's in the name, and it was the basis of its original product over a decade ago. However, "we evolved our data management to a total platform, a total solution to address the entire enterprise," she said. "We were one of the earliest to the table back in 2016 with a validated design, in conjunction with Cisco and Nvidia."

"We were on the forefront of AI, and it's interesting to see how it has evolved quickly. We've grown our platform to address all aspects of AI and risk management."

In essence, if your business is concerned about rising energy costs, about rising cloud costs, about the risks to your company's data from cyberattack, about your readiness to embrace AI because data is dispersed and ungoverned, about whether your infrastructure can handle the loads that will be demanded of it by AI workloads - then you really must explore a modern platform, one that allows you to manage data in the cloud and on-premises via single management interface, that is energy efficient, and that offers robust, resilient immutable protection against ransomware and other destructive threats.

"Some people interested in adopting Pure Storage get started by a project," Rushall said. "We ask what we can help them with, what's end of life, what's a project like AI that you want to start with and grow in your environment."

Or, sometimes people might start a journey with Pure Storage via its Pure BlockStorage product. "It's cloud block storage that helps with the reduction of costs as it relates to cloud spend," she said. "It can save up to 50% on your current cloud-spend using our data reduction technology and energy efficiency."

"We have a fantastic sales team and a really big team of engineers; they're specialists that can help with any of these challenges," Rushall said.

You can check out Pure Storage online. You can also check it out in person. On 29 October 2024 the company is holding an event, Pure Accelerate, in Melbourne for customers, prospects, and partners. There will be US-based executives flying in to speak about the opportunities of AI and how to execute upon them, and will be an opportunity for the ANZ C-suite to interact with peers.

You can find the report, "The Innovation Race: Reducing Risk and Navigating the AI Frontier for Future Success" online now.