AI Boosts Data Storage Demand, Sustainability Concerns Rise: Seagate Report

New Delhi, Apr 17 (PTI) A recent report has shown that 94.5 per cent of data centre professionals globally, including a significant number in India, expect AI to dramatically increase their data storage needs, highlighting a surge in demand that challenges sustainability efforts.

The decarbonising data report by Seagate Technology reveals that in India, 63.3 per cent of respondents manage between 500 petabytes and 5 terabytes of data, reflecting the vast scale of storage requirements driven by AI growth.

The rising data volumes, slowing power efficiency gains, and increasing AI adoption are putting pressure on organisations to manage carbon emissions, infrastructure expansion, and total cost of ownership (TCO) -- all at once.

The findings are based on insights from 330 data centre professionals responding across 11 markets, including Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, North America, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

The report highlights that 90 per cent of Indian respondents are concerned about the environmental impact of data storage, with half identifying high energy consumption as their top issue. Despite this, only a small fraction prioritise environmental factors in purchasing decisions, showing a gap between awareness and action.

Jason Feist, Senior Vice President of Cloud Marketing at Seagate, said, "Data centres are under intense scrutiny -- not only because they support modern AI workloads, but because they are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors of the digital economy."

He emphasised the need to optimise for both cost and sustainability, rather than treating them as trade-offs.

Key barriers to adopting sustainable data storage in India include limited physical space, unreliable electricity sources, and the high cost of building data centre infrastructure.

The report also notes a disconnect in lifecycle management: while 92.2 per cent globally acknowledge the importance of extending storage equipment life to reduce waste, only 15.5 per cent consider it a top purchasing factor.

In India, 13.3 per cent of respondents are uncertain about the sustainability benefits of lifecycle extension.

The Seagate's report urges a unified approach across the data centre ecosystem, advocating technological innovation, lifecycle extension, and shared accountability to meet rising AI demands sustainably.