AI Surge Overloads Data Storage: Balancing Cost and Sustainability

A recent Seagate report highlights the strain on global data storage needs, with AI-driven demand challenging sustainability. In India, professionals struggle with carbon emissions and infrastructure costs. Environmental concerns are rising, yet action lags. The report calls for a unified sustainability approach to address these challenges.

A new report by Seagate Technology indicates that 94.5% of data centre professionals worldwide, including many in India, foresee AI significantly amplifying their data storage demands. This uptick poses a challenge to sustainability efforts across the globe.

In India, 63.3% of survey respondents handle data storage requirements between 500 petabytes and 5 terabytes. The surge in data, coupled with slowing power efficiency and growing AI integration, pressures organisations to balance carbon emissions, infrastructure growth, and total ownership costs.

The Seagate report suggests a coordinated strategy among data centre stakeholders, encouraging technological advancement, lifecycle extension, and collective responsibility to sustainably meet the increasing demands of AI.

(With inputs from agencies.)