After only just a few years, the impacts of artificial intelligence are already being felt across both the global technology and business landscapes in four major ways.
Consider that in 2026, AI has already:
- Fueled massive infrastructure investment among AI cloud builders to the extent that the global supply chain for memory has taken a hit.
- Enticed organizations of all sizes to rapidly invest in their own AI initiatives, although many don't have a clear path to achieve positive ROI.
- Changed the way IT administrators wish to manage and automate their environments, increasingly preferring a prompt-based generative AI experience.
- Influenced leading IT infrastructure vendors to adjust and augment their portfolios to better serve an increased demand for scale in compute, networking and storage.
Those forces were on full display at this year's Dell Technologies World, influencing Dell's portfolio, its vision and its future strategy. For IT decision makers, it is vital to understand how the effects of AI listed above should influence their own infrastructure and software investment priorities moving forward.
AI and flash memory shortages change data storage priorities
Global demand for flash memory is already affecting IT roadmaps. According to research from Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget, 68% of organizations agree that current NAND flash supply chain concerns have impacted their organization's storage strategy in 2026.
In response, storage administrators need to adjust their buying priorities. More rigid storage architectures that focus on a single media type might have made planning easier in the past, but they are now more likely to lead to deployment delays or price increases and are more susceptible to future supply chain disruptions.
At this year's Dell Technologies World, Dell announced the new Dell PowerStore Elite, which represents a substantial update to the multi-protocol storage system. Dell claims it represents a full platform refresh across hardware and software, and that it triples performance and density compared with previous generations.
In any other year, it might be easy to categorize the PowerStore Elite launch as another generational refresh offering faster performance, more capacity and more functionality. The current concerns with flash memory supply chain shortages, though, make the more subtle parts of the announcement far more important than they might have been 12 months ago. For example, the 6 to 1 data reduction guarantee, the architecture's ability to mix storage media types, QLC and TLC, the ability to deploy less than fully populated enclosures and the ability to cluster multiple generations of systems together all hold greater weight now than in the past.
Under pressure to keep pace with the businesses demand for infrastructure, IT teams need storage capacity deployed on time, without limiting their internal roadmaps. Storage architectures that embrace flexibility should be prioritized, especially in the near term, as they increase the likelihood of getting hardware deployed sooner.
AI-enabled automation is already transforming operations
After years of mounting complexity, IT administrators may be getting relief in the era of AI-enabled IT operations, automation, management and observability tools. Software vendors such as ServiceNow, Red Hat with Ansible and Dynatrace have all augmented their capabilities with AI. On the infrastructure side, Dell Technologies, along with Everpure, Hitachi Vantara, HPE and IBM, have been working to provide AI-driven, natural language prompt-based interfaces for IT administrators.
The Dell Automation Platform uses telemetry data to deliver a generative user experience, simplifying the management and optimization of systems. The newly announced Dell Automation Studio then builds on the capabilities of the Dell Automation Platform to use AI for automation workflows for compute, networking and storage infrastructure.
For IT decision makers, the takeaway is that AI-enabled tools are already available, in use and rapidly evolving. Capabilities like those from Dell can greatly simplify the operational burden on IT admins and improve their flexibility. For example, the Dell Automation Platform facilitates the deployment of private cloud blueprints, using technology from Microsoft, Red Hat, Broadcom or Nutanix. This makes it much easier to evaluate, diversify or shift hypervisor or container platform vendors when the business wants. With 69% of organizations currently evaluating alternatives to replace their primary hypervisor, improved flexibility is a highly valuable capability.
With production AI, services offer path to positive ROI
Nearly every server vendor is an Nvidia partner and offers AI factory solutions, including Dell, Cisco, HPE, Lenovo and Supermicro. If simply buying Nvidia GPUs was the secret to AI success, every organization would be well on its way. One of the things that makes achieving success in AI complex is that, for it to be truly transformative, it must be tailored to an organization's specific use cases, processes and datasets. There is little to no "one-size-fits-all" when it comes to AI.
Outside of the infrastructure, complementary AI services play a critical role in tailoring the tool to the use case and ensuring a positive ROI. Here, Dell's experience using AI internally as "customer zero" and how it capitalizes on its own internal lessons when training its services teams to work with clients becomes important. According to Dell, it has over 5,000 AI factory customers. While Dell is certainly not alone in offering AI services, IT decision makers must apply extra scrutiny when evaluating the capabilities and experience of their intended partner's service options.
Massive-scale AI infrastructure demands are transforming deployment, power and cooling options
The extent of global AI investment is forcing IT infrastructure vendors to develop tools designed to quickly deploy massive levels of compute, networking and storage. At the event, Dell Technologies announced three new offerings:
- Dell PowerRack -- A set of validated and integrated rack-scale systems designed to quicken the delivery of compute, networking and storage. It does this by pre-configuring the rack, systems, cabling, thermal design, power management and software. For management, Dell offers remote orchestration and visibility for every rack component. For compute-centric deployments, Dell focuses on optimizing GPU density and provides direct liquid cooling. Networking-centric deployments are designed to facilitate large-scale AI fabric deployments.
- Dell Exascale -- A storage-centric PowerRack configuration including parallel file, file, object and block storage to facilitate the deployment of the massive capacities (double-digit petabytes) and high bandwidth (up to 6 TB/s according to Dell) required for AI workloads.
- PowerCool -- Rack-mount cooling units designed to cool more than 220 kW in four rack units and support water inlet temperatures up to 40 degrees Celsius.
While IT decision makers at smaller-sized organizations may find these options a little overpowered for more traditional environments, innovations in density, power efficiency and cooling will likely find their way into smaller-scale offerings in the future.
For an IT decision maker, the takeaway is that the impacts of AI on IT and technology are far broader than the specific systems and tools you are deploying for your own AI initiatives. The way IT infrastructure is being designed and managed, and the services associated with it, have already rapidly evolved. And this rapid evolution is not over yet.
Scott Sinclair is practice director with Omdia, covering the storage industry.
Omdia is a division of Informa TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.
