Over 40% of Singapore IT Leaders Doubt Digital Infrastructure's Readiness for AI

SINGAPORE – June 14, 2023 – More than four in 10 IT leaders surveyed in Singapore (44%) believe their existing IT infrastructure is not fully prepared for the demands of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, despite its widespread adoption across industries, according to the Equinix 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey. The survey, which examined IT leaders’ responses to AI advances in their organizations, comes after a year of significant AI breakthroughs that saw the technology rapidly deployed in applications across both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors.

AI has become a critical tool for a myriad of economic sectors worldwide, including those in Singapore. According to Mrs Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, AI’s ability to deliver human-like intelligence s especially valuable for economies like Singapore where maximizing the potential of human capital is a key priority.¹

Equinix’s survey confirmed AI adoption is on the rise across all industry sectors in Singapore, with 91% of the IT decision-makers polled in the city-state seeking to benefit from the advantages of AI, and are already using or planning to use it across multiple key functions. Organizations are most likely to be using AI, or planning to do so, in cybersecurity (91%), followed by IT operations (90%), and customer experience (83%). The survey also highlighted the top deterrents that could impact the AI adoption in Singapore. These include increased OPEX costs (51%) and a lack of internal knowledge (50%) on the technology.

“AI’s ability to catalyze innovation holds significant potential to propel Singapore’s economy forward. In a digital-first business landscape, organizations that have yet to leverage AI will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the long term,” said Yee May Leong, Managing Director, South Asia, Equinix. “We foresee the most successful AI models to be those capable of analyzing data at speed and scale, supported by secure, reliable, and high-speed, connectivity. This is powered by digital infrastructure providers such as Equinix, whose green data centers in key metros are facilitating interconnections across more than 10,000 organizations globally. This enables Asia-Pacific businesses and economies to capitalize on exponentially growing data in a sustainable manner.”

On implementing complex AI strategies, Aengus Tran, CEO & Co-Founder at harrison.ai, noted: “Secure hosting of our compute and data storage platforms is our highest technical priority as we build AI solutions for clinicians across the world. We rely on an extremely fast and direct connection to enable hybrid cloud models as required to move remarkably large data sets on which we train and develop our AI solutions. This digital infrastructure enables us to tackle bigger healthcare problems — from medical imaging solutions to new AI healthcare solutions requiring more data and processing—helping to improve the standard of global healthcare and achieve our vision to impact one million lives per day.”

Asia-Pacific remains a strong and dynamic region projected to contribute around 70% of global growth in 2023.  Findings from the Equinix 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey echoes that, with 85% of Singapore businesses planning to expand geographically in the next 12 months.

A full copy of the report can be found here.

About the Survey
The independent study, commissioned by Equinix, surveyed more than 2,900 IT decision-makers in diverse enterprises across the Americas (Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, U.S.), Asia-Pacific (Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea), and EMEA (Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, UK). Respondents were selected for participation from Dynata's online panel. The survey was conducted online between March 20, 2023 and April 07, 2023.

About Equinix 
Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world’s digital infrastructure company®. Digital leaders harness Equinix’s trusted platform to bring together and interconnect foundational infrastructure at software speed. Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value, while supporting their sustainability goals.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, risks to our business and operating results related to the current inflationary environment; foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; increased costs to procure power and the general volatility in the global energy market; the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX^® and xScale^® data centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix products and solutions; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenues from customers in recently built out or acquired data centers; failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; risks related to our taxation as a REIT and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent and upcoming Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Equinix Media Relations (Asia-Pacific)
Equinix
Annie Ho
+852 2970 7761
annho@ap.equinix.com

Media Contact (Singapore)
TEAM LEWIS
Tan Yanchang
+65 9474 5338 
equinixSG@teamlewis.com

¹ How Singapore intends to harness AI for the public good  
² Regional Economic Outlook, Asia and Pacific, International Monetary Fund, May 2023