The top tech trends for 2026 are interwoven together on a grand scale that will affect virtually everyone, either directly or indirectly, at work, at home, or on the go − AI, cyber, autonomous automation and power usage.

In this blog we break down the characteristics and complexities of these four tech trends in simple terms. They provide a broader context and usher you into a world where tectonic shifts in technologies are accelerating and shaping the future. Buckle up; it’s going to be a “whirlwind” of a ride! The tech trends for 2026 include:

• Cyber Resilience Rules
• AI Juggernaut Sweeps the World
• Advanced Intelligent Automation Everywhere
• Data Centers Are Power-Hungry

Cyber Resilience Rules

Building resilience into every layer of IT infrastructure is a trend that will be prevalent in 2026. It will be the culmination of years of realizations about the gaps within enterprise data infrastructure that leaves enterprises vulnerable to cyberattacks. Going forward, cyber resilience will be treated as a core business function.

The crowning achievement of cyber resilience as a tech trend will be the fact that senior enterprise leadership teams will be compelled to make cyber resilience a top priority in the new year, not only because of the technical wizardry that get engineers excited, but because of the business impact to protect an enterprise’s most valued asset – its data – with cyber resilience capabilities.

In a survey of 1,500 C-suite and senior executives across 14 countries and seven specific industries, the 2025 Futures Report: Cyber Resilience and Business Impact (LevelBlue Research) reports that 43% of cyber resilience minded C-level executives say they are increasing boardroom engagement in cyber resilience discussions. In addition, 68% of executives say that media reports of high-profile breaches have elevated cybersecurity up the C-suite agenda. The survey reinforces that leadership plays an important role in cyber resilience.

The chief “rule” is that every enterprise will need to be able to bounce back and recover from a cyberattack within minutes or, depending on the size of the datasets, only a few hours. Cyber resilience makes this possible, highlighting its relevance for every enterprise. This will nullify the harm intended by cyberattacks. Cybercriminals will think twice because there will be no need for enterprises to pay the “ransom” for data that is taken hostage. With this megatrend, the C-suite is taking back more control to steer their enterprise into a safer environment.

But there is work to be done. According to PwC’s 2026 Global Digital Trust Insights survey (October 2025), only 6% feel confident across all vulnerabilities surveyed. At the same time, the PwC survey states that 60% of business and tech leaders rank cyber risk investment in their top three strategic priorities.

Relevance of Infinidat
Having pioneered next-generation data protection, Infinidat offers the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise cyber storage resilience solutions.

AI Juggernaut Sweeps the World

It’s no surprise to say that AI is a tech trend that is transforming society in many ways − from the way people search information to allowing AI to do mundane tasks to advanced agentic AI that brings AI models to “life.” According to Gartner's forecast, global AI spending is projected to reach approximately $2.02 trillion in 2026. This represents a significant increase of 36% from the estimated $1.48 trillion spent in 2025. What is expected to drive this bump in spending is the integration of AI into IT infrastructure, as well as incorporating more AI capabilities into smart phones and computers.

Granted, many organizations are currently in proof-of-concept (POC) phases with AI. While POCs are being done across market segments, including finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, marketing, and supply chain, among others, critics point to how they are not in full-scale production mode. In addition, there has been some negative press lately about AI, such as the MIT study that says over 11% of the U.S. workforce could be replaced by AI today. Moreover, there have been some issues reported publicly in the media about “speed bumps” that some companies have had to overcome with AI deployments. Nonetheless, those issues will be resolved over the next 12-18 months, proving the business value of AI.

Just a few years ago, you may not have even heard of the term “AI factory.” Yet, today, AI factories are popping up all over the place, and you see the term used commonly in the media. These “factories” leverage AI-driven automation, demand enormous amounts of power – an issue that will be explored later in this blog – and must be made cyber secure and safeguarded against intruders and cybercriminals.

An AI factory is a specialized infrastructure that manages the entire lifecycle of AI. That’s from data ingestion to model deployment and continuous refinement. It is designed to automate and scale the creation of AI models and applications. Enterprises and service providers are developing or acquiring private AI factories to maintain control over their data and ensure security and compliance, as well as customizing and honing AI solutions to their specific business requirements. Among its many technological facets, AI factories need to use advanced, enterprise-grade storage to handle AI workloads and AI applications.

Relevance of Infinidat
Infinidat provides AI optimized enterprise storage solutions that excel at handling AI workloads and applications. Performance is everything in AI, and Infinidat delivers the highest performing enterprise storage platforms on the market today.

Advanced Intelligent Autonomous Automation Everywhere

Driverless cars, driverless taxis, and driverless buses are examples of the type of advanced intelligent autonomous automation that we see merging into mainstream life in our world. It illustrates the impact that AI is having on changing how people live, work and drive. Cars have essentially become data-driven AI machines – and the data from all the driverless cars come back into centralized data centers, whether hyperscalers, managed service providers, or large enterprise on-premises data infrastructure.

Systems of all kinds are gaining more autonomy to perform complex, multi-step tasks with no human intervention. This includes AI agents, which can reason, plan, and act on their own. This is enabled by the fact that AI models are becoming more sophisticated at processing various types of data at the same time. Furthermore, machine learning (a form of AI that learns from data and identifies patterns), is being used to build more adaptive, automated cybersecurity tools, such as cyber detection that is built into an enterprise storage platform.

AI automation is enabling robotics to revolutionize manufacturing and logistics. It is accelerating scientific discovery and improving healthcare by automating tasks, such as detecting diseases. Indeed, AI-driven automation, especially with the use of deep learning (another form of AI) is generating new hope in the healthcare space for tasks that cannot be scaled with human doctors. But there is also the rise of non-AI automation. Autonomous automation signifies “thinking” systems.

Ultimately, all of these types of automation allow people to take a “set-it-and-forget-it” approach – a hallmark of the most advanced automation for this decade.

Relevance of Infinidat
Infinidat is the leader in enterprise storage that delivers different flavors of autonomous automation, enabling a set-it-and-forget-it approach to enterprise storage. Infinidat has redefined how high-end, automated enterprise storage is easy to deploy and use.

Data Centers Are Power-Hungry

The need for power is sweeping data centers, and data centers are power hungry. The tech trend of escalating power usage demands across an increasing number of data centers will only grow bigger over time. Whether using AI or not, many data centers exist on the edge of running out of power in the near future. The AI boom is one of the main reasons why data centers require an exponential increase in the amount of power, signifying the interwoven intricacy of this trend with the AI trend, as well as cyber and automation trends.

While power demands are growing, the construction of new data centers is exploding in numbers as well. The focus is on the scale and power capacity of new construction. The data center construction market grew by over 55% in 2024, and it’s estimated that this market has grown by over 33% in 2025, according to ABI Research. In the U.S., construction of data centers spending in July 2025 was nearly triple the comparable figure for the first seven months of 2024. As part of this construction boom, the number of large hyperscale data centers in operation has increased significantly, for sure.

In 2025, as an example, U.S. power consumption reached a record high of over 4,100 billion kilowatt-hours. One of the top factors was the increased demand from data centers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA also projects power demand will rise to over 4,300 billion kWh in 2026.

The implication of this power-hungry tech trend is that enterprises need to find ways to save energy, redirect energy, and/or save costs on energy. Power efficiency is the new “call to action” for IT teams across the world. They need to be able to show how they are implementing strategies that reduce power usage or redirect power to more strategic AI systems. Enterprise storage infrastructure will be a prime target in 2026 for enterprises to make data infrastructure more power-efficient by investing in power-efficient enterprise storage platforms. Not only will enterprise data centers become more “green” through this trend, but enterprises will also be able to reap significant cost savings.

Relevance of Infinidat
Infinidat expanded and enhanced the InfiniBox® G4 family recently, enabling enterprise customers and service providers to store larger quantities of data more efficiently, free up rack space and floorspace, and reduce energy consumption for a greener storage infrastructure at a better power cost-efficiency per terabyte of storage.

To sum it all up: AI, cyber, autonomous automation and power usage – four overarching factors redefining the future of technology! Enterprise-grade storage will play a vital role across all of these trends in 2026 and beyond.

To read our 2026 Storage Trends blog, click here.