Hitachi Vantara: Customers looking for channel help with AI

The artificial intelligence (AI) opportunity for the channel has merged around getting customers ready to deploy and secure technology that continues to evolve.

Research from Hitachi Vantara has underlined the situation many users find themselves in, and the willingness of significant numbers to work with a third-party to help them with their AI strategies.

The headline findings from the firm’s annual State of data infrastructure global report, which collects opinions from IT leaders at UK businesses, found that 77% were struggling with data complexity rising too fast to manage. Rising data volumes, increased AI use and the introduction of more platforms had consequences for security.

The vendor also found significant numbers were looking to work with channel partners to share the burden of AI, with security concerns around the technology the factor keeping most awake at night.

The research highlighted that security was the top issue for users, with many feeling that so far, AI had benefitted the cyber criminals rather than their targets, with 67% of UK leaders placing data security as their top concern.

The response from many users was to run sensitive workloads on their private clouds, but it is not just because of security, with questions of data sovereignty rising up the agenda and forcing public cloud usage to fall.

Lee Nolan, general manager for the UK and Ireland at Hitachi Vantara, said the results showed there was a clear need for partners as customers wrestled with complexity and security.

“While ambition for AI is widespread, our research shows that organisations are struggling to translate strategy into operational reality,” he said. “As data environments grow more complex and the demands placed on them intensify, resilience, availability and operational maturity have emerged as the defining factors separating AI leaders from the rest of the market.

“The report reveals a significant capability gap beneath the surface of AI adoption,” said Nolan. “Almost all organisations recognise the challenge: 94% say they urgently need third-party support to manage increasingly complex data infrastructure. This reflects not a lack of access to AI technologies, but a growing strain on the systems, skills and operating models required to run them at scale.

“That strain is most visible in the maturity divide identified in the research,” he added. “Among optimised organisations, 89% operate with high-availability design, conduct regular resilience testing, and use AI-driven operations to maintain performance and continuity. By contrast, just 20% of emerging organisations demonstrate the same level of operational robustness.”

Nolan said the combination of security concerns, fears return on investment would not be realised and the general complexities of deploying and managing AI gave partners clear areas to provide support.

“This is where channel partners become critical,” he said. “The findings highlight a clear and growing opportunity for partners to help organisations bridge the gap between ambition and execution.

“By providing specialist expertise across data infrastructure, resilience and AI operations, channel partners can support customers in moving from experimentation to optimisation. In doing so, they enable organisations to transform data strategy into stable, AI-ready environments that deliver real-world value while positioning themselves as essential enablers of the next phase of AI adoption.”