Scality Study Finds Object Storage Powers 91% of Private AI Deployments

A new study commissioned by Scality has found that object storage is central to nearly all private AI deployments in production. The research, conducted by Freeform Dynamics, surveyed 504 enterprises and revealed that 91% of organizations running private AI report meaningful use of object storage, with 44% using it extensively and 47% using it frequently.

The findings indicate that as enterprises move from experimental AI projects to large-scale production, data infrastructure is becoming as critical as GPUs. More than half of respondents identified storage performance as a key factor in avoiding AI bottlenecks, ranking it alongside compute and network capacity. The study also found that 81% of enterprises consider having control over their private AI infrastructure essential for meeting sovereignty and compliance requirements.

The survey showed that most organizations are adopting hybrid architectures, with many adapting existing compute and storage systems for AI rather than building entirely new environments. Metadata handling and mixed workload performance were cited as ongoing challenges, emphasizing the need for scalable, resilient storage platforms.

Scality stated that the results confirm a growing trend toward using S3-compatible object storage as the foundation for tiered AI architectures that balance performance, governance, and cost efficiency in production environments.