GTT Communications Inc., a leader in networking and security as a service for multinational organizations, today released a new Cloud Usage and Management Trends white paper based on industry survey findings. The paper reveals a resurgence in private cloud adoption, primarily driven by rising privacy, security and compliance requirements, with AI workloads emerging as a fast-growing contributor to this shift.
Conducted by Hanover Research, the survey shows that in the era of advanced AI, concerns around data privacy, security and regulatory compliance are naturally top of mind for enterprise leaders. These priorities, alongside a growing need to safely test and deploy AI models, are driving a resurgence in private cloud adoption as organizations seek greater control over where and how sensitive data is handled.
“We know many companies are now shifting their sensitive workloads to private clouds as part of broader multi-cloud and hybrid strategies designed to support agentic AI and other complex AI initiatives at scale,” said Bastien Aerni, VP of Strategy and Technology Adoption, GTT. “This distributed approach allows enterprises to balance performance, security and compliance requirements while optimizing costs to advance their AI ambitions.”
According to survey respondents, private cloud spending at the $10M+ per year level will increase from 43% in 2024 to 53.6% in 2025, reflecting a 24% growth rate, compared to just 12% growth in public cloud spending for these same cohorts. More than half of all AI workloads already reside in a combination of private cloud and on-premises environments, driven primarily by enhanced security (56%), compliance and regulatory demands (51%) and the specific needs of AI workloads (50%). Cost remains a factor but ranks much lower at 35%.
As enterprises adopt hybrid strategies to support more complex AI workloads, many encounter challenges spanning both public and private cloud environments. For public cloud deployments, challenges around migration of apps and data and technical skills or feasibility are the highest ranking at 43%. When migrating workloads to private clouds, the top challenges – each cited by 38% of respondents – are managing apps post-migration, securing hybrid environments and, once again, a lack of technical skills or feasibility.
“Enterprise infrastructure strategies are evolving fast as AI workloads surpass the limits of traditional architectures,” Aerni continued. “Organizations are refining their cloud environments, whether public, private or hybrid, to support their AI initiatives at scale. But many still underestimate the complexity involved. In our experience, without reengineering connectivity and security architectures, even the most ambitious private cloud strategies can fall short.”
Hanover Research surveyed 283 IT, infrastructure, networking, security and other enterprise leaders throughout the U.S. and Europe across retail, hospitality, manufacturing, food and beverage, healthcare, financial services, tech and more. Each respondent represents an organization with at least six locations and annual revenues of $200 million or more.
Learn more about the survey-based white paper, Cloud Usage and Management Trends, here.
