Artificial Intelligence is no longer just a concept it's changing the way organisations work, compete, and grow. But to power this transformation, we need the right infrastructure for the future.
The Uptime Institute’s 2025 AI Infrastructure Survey provides an urgent executive briefing: the strategic build-out for AI is in full swing, and proactive engagement is paramount to securing future competitive advantage. Based on comprehensive data from 519 global data centre owner/operators, the survey reveals a market adapting at speed, driving significant shifts in capital expenditure and demanding innovative approaches to manage AI's extreme density and power requirements.
For organizational leaders yet to embark on their AI infrastructure transformation, this report serves as a critical prompt: the foundational shift is underway across the industry, and readiness is key to harnessing AI's full potential.
AI is no longer a future concept; it's driving present-day competitive advantage, and its adoption curve is accelerating at an unprecedented pace:
This means nearly 4 out of 5 organisations are either actively leveraging AI today or are in advanced stages of building the foundational capabilities for it. For leaders, this isn't just an IT trend; it's a critical indicator of market direction and competitive differentiation. Those who scale their infrastructure proactively will gain first-mover advantages, while those who delay risk significant strategic and operational setbacks.
This transformation requires not just compute power, but a complete rethinking of infrastructure strategy, power density, and cooling capabilities to remain relevant and competitive.
“Every company is becoming a technology company. And every company will become an AI company.”
— Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA, Source: GTC 2024 Keynote
While the public cloud often dominates discussions, the reality for AI workloads is far more nuanced, driven by critical organisational and technical considerations. The Uptime Institute survey reveals a significant trend:
This distribution isn't arbitrary. It's a calculated response to the Top Factors Influencing AI Inference Location, as identified by the Uptime Institute survey chart above:
Ultimately, effective AI deployment isn't merely about compute power. It's a complex interplay of compliance, performance, total cost of ownership, and strategic control over physical location, factors that directly impact your organization's risk profile, financial health, and ability to innovate at speed.
AI workloads are not just digitally demanding; they are physically transformative, imposing power and heat loads far beyond anything traditional IT infrastructure has experienced. The exponential energy consumption of GPUs, the core of AI processing, is creating a new category of infrastructure challenge.
The Uptime Institute survey reveals the intensity of this shift:
This unprecedented demand is forcing executive action:
For organizational leaders, this translates directly to strategic risk and financial considerations. Underestimating these power and cooling demands can lead to:
Addressing this "breaking point" requires not just technical fixes, but a comprehensive, strategic infrastructure plan that accounts for the long-term energy and thermal requirements of your AI roadmap.
“The data centre is no longer a warehouse for servers. It’s an AI factory.”
— Ronnie Vasishta, SVP of Telecom, NVIDIA
(Source: NVIDIA AI Factories Brief)
AI thrives in highly connected environments. That’s why location, latency, and ecosystem access are now mission-critical. As AI workloads scale across regions — from federated learning and multi-region training to real-time inference at the edge, being milliseconds closer to the data path can unlock real business value.
NEXTDC’s data centres are strategically located in every major Australian capital city, with direct access to international subsea cable stations, providing a distinct performance advantage into Asia and the Pacific. This proximity enables faster data movement, reduced latency, and more efficient AI operations at scale.
If you're delivering GPU-as-a-Service, building a global AI platform, or offering cross-border AI insights, being physically closer to the network core translates directly into faster model training, lower operating costs, and superior customer experiences.
Colocation with NEXTDC also unlocks:
Global connectivity via subsea cable systems for real-time collaboration and data movement
Dense digital ecosystems including research institutions, hyperscale cloud platforms, and enterprise partners
Sovereign-grade infrastructure aligned with compliance needs in healthcare, defence, and education
Ultra-low latency and massive bandwidth for high-performance workloads like distributed inference, LLM training, and digital twins
AI needs more than just compute power, it needs to be connected, localised, and ecosystem-enabled. NEXTDC delivers the infrastructure advantage to make that possible.
Organisations aren't just building AI infrastructure to merely keep pace; they are strategically leveraging it to lead, innovate, and secure their future competitive position. Our latest Uptime Institute survey reveals that investment in AI infrastructure is directly tied to achieving core business objectives, moving beyond theoretical capabilities to tangible, quantifiable outcomes.
The top drivers for implementing AI infrastructure projects highlight this strategic imperative:
While these top drivers focus on growth and innovation, it's critical to note that AI infrastructure investments also underpin foundational organisational resilience and risk mitigation. The Uptime Institute survey also shows that organisations are investing to:
This holistic view underscores that AI is no longer just a technological frontier; it is an organisational-critical capability and a strategic investment. The robust, scalable infrastructure you commit to today will not only enable your AI ambitions but will fundamentally define your organisation's agility, competitive posture, and long-term viability in tomorrow's digital economy
The AI infrastructure race is on. And whether you’re ready or not, your organisation is already being benchmarked by how well it can support:
For CIOs and CTOs, this is no longer just an IT project, it’s a strategic infrastructure decision that impacts customer experience, product speed, and global competitiveness.
Want to see how your infrastructure stacks up?
→ Build where AI thrives. Start your journey with NEXTDC.