After nearly two decades of cloud adoption, only 14 percent of organizations worldwide have reached the highest level of cloud maturity, according to new research from NTT DATA.
99 percent of companies indicate that AI is driving demand for cloud investments, but at the same time, 88 percent believe that current investment levels are jeopardizing AI projects, cloud-native initiatives, and modernization. Less than half of organizations are satisfied with the impact of the cloud on innovation or with the progress of their modernization journey.
“AI is accelerating faster than enterprise cloud maturity,” says Charlie Li, President and Global Head of Cloud and Security at NTT DATA. “Cloud has moved well beyond infrastructure and is now the execution layer for AI.”
Gap between frontrunners and laggards
Organizations that NTT DATA categorizes as “cloud evolved”—the most mature group—perform significantly better. For instance, 47 percent of cloud leaders used AI in their most recent cloud migration project, compared to 35 percent among the rest. In terms of security, the contrast is even greater: 68 percent of the frontrunners are highly confident in their cloud security, compared to just 36 percent among the others.
NTT DATA outlines six priorities for organizations. These include simultaneously developing cloud and AI strategies, making the right architectural choices (with sovereign cloud adoption expected to grow by 50 percent over the next two years), application modernization, a platform-driven approach, adjusting cloud KPIs, and focusing on security fundamentals. Modernization is at the top of the agenda for the next two years, as half of respondents say legacy applications and data platforms hinder innovation.
Tip: NTT DATA and Google Cloud join forces for AI transformation