SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Scality, a global leader in cyber-resilient storage software for the AI era, today announced new findings from independent research conducted by Freeform Dynamics that examines how enterprises are building infrastructure for AI in production environments. The new study, Storage Infrastructure for Enterprise AI: Lessons From Seasoned Adopters on Building Scalable Sovereign Environments, highlights a clear production reality: as AI initiatives move from experimentation to operational scale, data and storage infrastructure are emerging as primary constraints.
As AI adoption matures, many organizations are deploying private AI, also known as sovereign AI, to maintain control over the infrastructure that powers their models and data. Running AI workloads closer to enterprise data can improve performance, support regulatory requirements, and help manage long-term costs. As infrastructure costs continue to fall, private AI is becoming an increasingly practical complement to cloud-based AI services.
Within these environments, object storage is widely used as a foundational component of on-premises AI pipelines. As AI deployments mature into production, infrastructure decisions increasingly reflect requirements for reliability, governance, cost control, and lifecycle management.
Production AI is a data pipeline problem
While GPUs and compute capacity often dominate AI infrastructure conversations, the Freeform Dynamics research shows that enterprises running private AI are prioritizing systems that stage, govern, protect, and reuse data across inference-driven pipelines. Key findings include:
- 91% of enterprises running private AI in production report meaningful use of object storage, the highest overall adoption among storage architectures. 44% use object storage extensively and 47% use it quite a bit in their AI environments — slightly ahead of file-based storage and well above block-based storage.
- 81% of enterprises say private AI infrastructure they control is critical to their success, driven by sovereignty, compliance, and data proximity requirements.
- 57% of enterprises prioritize storage performance to avoid AI bottlenecks, compared with 54% citing compute or GPU availability and 52% citing network bandwidth, reinforcing that storage is as critical as compute in production AI environments.
- 44% of enterprises adapt existing compute infrastructure for AI and 42% adapt existing storage, while 40% purpose-build compute and 39% purpose-build storage, showing that tiered, hybrid architectures are the norm rather than greenfield-only deployments.
- 40% of enterprises cite metadata handling at scale as a bottleneck risk and 38% report mixed workload handling challenges, reflecting the need for storage platforms that support both high-throughput training workloads and low-latency inference across the AI lifecycle.
“Most industry discussion frames AI infrastructure as primarily a compute challenge,” said Tony Lock, Director of Engagement and Distinguished Analyst at Freeform Dynamics. “This research makes clear that enterprises running private AI in production are dealing with a broader systems reality. Many see a need for simple, scalable architectures that keep data close, support multiple AI genres, and balance performance with governance and cyber resilience across the full pipeline.”
What this means for infrastructure teams
The survey reflects organizations already deploying AI in real operational environments, not just pilots. As day-to-day AI activity becomes increasingly inference-driven, enterprises are converging on tiered architectures that combine fast tiers for active workloads with scalable capacity tiers for persistent and reusable data. Within this model, S3-compatible object storage functions as a foundational layer, alongside file and other storage types that continue to support workload-specific requirements.
“The data defines the problem, and the platform determines who scales,” said Paul Speciale, Chief Marketing Officer at Scality. “This research validates what we see in the field: production AI success depends on how effectively teams manage and operationalize data throughout the AI lifecycle. Scality provides an S3-native, tiered, cyber-resilient foundation aligned with how enterprises are building sovereign AI today. It delivers the control, predictability, and operational resilience required to scale.”
The Freeform Dynamics research is based on an online survey of 504 senior IT and data professionals at medium to large enterprises (with more than 1,000 employees) actively running private AI in live, operational environments. Respondents who indicated that all of their AI developments and deployments were cloud-based were excluded from the study. Participants were located across the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, spanning industries including financial services, professional services, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, government, and media and entertainment.
To explore a deeper analysis of the research findings and their architectural implications, read Scality’s companion blog: Production AI is a data pipeline problem: Insights from 504 enterprises running private AI.
To download the full research report: Storage Infrastructure for Enterprise AI, from FreeForm Dynamics, visit the survey report page.
About Freeform Dynamics
Freeform Dynamics is an IT industry analyst firm. Through our research and insights, we help busy IT and business professionals get up to speed on the latest technology developments and make better-informed investment decisions. For more information, please visit freeformdynamics.com.
About Scality
Scality solves organizations’ biggest data storage challenges — growth, security, performance, and cost. Designed for end-to-end cyber resilience, only Scality S3 object storage with CORE5 safeguards data at every level of the system, from API to architecture. Its patented MultiScale Architecture enables limitless, independent scalability in all critical dimensions to meet the unpredictable demands of modern workloads. The world’s most discerning companies depend on Scality to accelerate high-performance AI initiatives, optimize cloud deployments, and defend their data with confidence. Recognized as a leader by Gartner, Scality software is reliable, secure, and sustainable. Follow us on LinkedIn. Visit http://www.scality.com and our blog.
Scality and RING are trademarks or registered trademarks of Scality, Inc. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Media Contacts:
Erin Jones
Avista Public Relations for Scality
805.440.6587
scality@avistapr.com
