Enterprise attempts to scale artificial intelligence are stalling due to underlying cloud operational limitations rather than model capabilities, according to survey findings released by NTT Data. Based on responses from over 2,300 global senior decision-makers, the company highlights a distinct gap between basic cloud adoption and the cloud operating maturity required to execute real-time AI workloads.
Legacy Bottlenecks and Cloud Satisfaction
Fewer than half of the surveyed organizations reported satisfaction with cloud computing's impact on innovation or IT modernization progress. NTT Data noted that while cloud adoption is widespread across enterprises, early migration strategies focused on short-term infrastructure efficiency rather than deep modernization. Outdated applications and legacy data platforms were identified by approximately half of the organizations as a direct barrier to AI innovation, given legacy systems' poor fit for real-time, data-rich AI requirements.
Architectural Shifts Toward Sovereign Cloud
To accommodate compute-intensive AI operations, enterprises are increasingly shifting toward hybrid, multicloud, and sovereign cloud frameworks. NTT Data expects sovereign cloud adoption to rise by 50% over the next two years as companies prioritize regulatory compliance, data sovereignty, and operational control. These architectural choices dictate where AI workloads execute, directly influencing cost-effectiveness and enterprise governance.
Governance and Cost Controls for Autonomous Systems
The survey identified cloud cost control as a prominent operational hurdle, with over half of organizations struggling to manage spending as dynamic AI and agentic workloads introduce volatile usage patterns. Furthermore, respondents cited risk, governance, and compliance as top challenges for deploying autonomous AI agents over the next 12 to 18 months. Security emerged as the primary cloud investment priority, with NTT Data emphasizing that mature organizations integrate identity management and continuous governance directly into their cloud operating platforms rather than treating security as an isolated add-on.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Source: From cloud adoption to cloud maturity: The new imperative for enterprise AI
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