Future-proof data storage power will be the catalyst of the global economy in the zettabyte era. That’s the conclusion of a new report from Huawei and global consultants Roland Berger in a new white paper entitled, ‘Future-proof data storage power’, launched at the Huawei Connect 2024 event.

At the launch, Peter Zhou, president of Huawei’s data storage product line, said: "Two years ago, we launched the ‘data storage power’ white paper to offer valuable reference and inspiration for those concerned about the development of the storage industry and further promote its growth. Today, we release the ‘future-proof data storage power’ white paper, which I believe will help enterprises cope with new challenges and requirements of data storage in the AI era.

“By promoting digital infrastructure upgrades across society, and achieving storage-enhanced compute, intelligence, and resilience, we will see a huge boost towards the intelligent economy."

The digital landscape has been transformed by artificial intelligence at such an expedited rate that the world is still in the process of coming to grips with it all. One thing is certain, however. The data center industry must evolve to embrace not only the demands, but also the possibilities that this new era heralds.

Huawei has identified the need to move to a model of “future-proof data storage power”, based on the widespread adoption of solid-state/flash drives (SSD) as the preferred storage medium and the ubiquity of backup data to ensure data integrity and availability. This model is designed to meet the needs and expectations of the world population as we enter what it calls the “intelligence era.”

But what is “future-proof data storage power?” Huawei believes it will be characterized by 8 features such as universal ubiquity, native AI, compact architecture, and an open ecosystem, all of which will foster the adoption of AI use cases.

The transition to SSDs is becoming not just economically viable, but extremely desirable to meet the vision of future-proof data storage power. According to Huawei, traditional HDDs still dominate the market share, with about 70 percent still using HDDs.

The industry has reached a consensus that the cost of SSDs can be gradually reduced through quantities of scale, by combining technologies such as data compression and hardware high density, which will bring prices close to that of HDDs.

Therefore, Huawei argues that it is inevitable that SSDs will replace HDDs. However, in certain scenarios, such as hyper-scale data storage, HDDs still have advantages. In the future, HDDs and SSDs may coexist in different application scenarios to leverage their respective advantages.

So, what does “Intelligent Economy” look like in an age of native AI applications, large language models, and transformations of the digital landscape that occur almost overnight?

The report identifies three core characteristics. Firstly, the importance of data, energy, and technology as the building blocks of generalized intelligence. Second, this same intelligence will reshape enterprise data governance at an end-to-end level. Thirdly, the “Generalizable AI agent” will become the primary driving force for productivity.

These three factors will lead to the elevation of data as a marketplace, with increasingly complex cybersecurity, increased demand for low-carbon power, and an increasing reliance on AI-native applications.

Huawei tells us that the report serves to look forward to the “intelligent era”, where the digital and physical worlds will deeply integrate, enhancing the process of “digital-physical convergence” from end-points to planes, enabling a deep combination of digital technologies and the real economy, and giving rise to a “digitally intelligent twin world.“

This in turn will lead to the emergence of a new digital economic paradigm, says Huawei. The intelligent economy will not only build on successful experiences of the digital economy but will also address more societal development needs.

Seamless integration of next-generation technologies such as 6G and artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) will drive the shift from isolated, decentralized single-point intelligent models, to new models of interconnected intelligent systems.

This will enable the intelligent economy to enhance productivity, improve social welfare, and advance environmental benefits through innovative intelligent solutions, promoting the integration of virtual and physical industries, leading to a new wave of high-speed economic growth.

Future-proof data storage power is considered a crucial aspect of these changes, acting as a high-performance engine for the digital economy. To do this, three development goals must be realized:

1: Intense aggregation of disparate data sources across domains, 2: Efficient, reliable data storage, and 3: Efficient enabling of a diversified application system.

Data center operators and other stakeholders can comprehensively consider the construction of future-proof data storage power through the application of six principles: scale planning, full-stack architecture, performance requirements, security and ransomware protection, solution-level TCO, and native AI empowerment.

These considerations will vary in scale and scope depending on the territory, which the report divides into four basic types:

• Advanced countries: SSD has become the norm in providing a more than adequate storage infrastructure.
• Traditional countries: Leading global efficiency in storage but with minimum SSD penetration.
• Boutique countries: Limited storage stability but with a higher-than-average penetration of SSD.
• Emerging countries: Limited storage stability, and lower than average SSD penetration.

The report concludes that each country needs to have a clear understanding of its position in this global hierarchy, establish clear development goals and policies to encourage innovation, and fearlessly launch pilot projects for future-proof data storage power models in the public sector as an introduction to the market at large.

Damien Dujacquier, global partner at Roland Berger, adds: "Enterprises should shift their perspective from 'data storage power' to 'future-proof data storage power', to address key global trends such as surging data volumes, the booming data factor market, emerging native AI applications, increasingly complex cybersecurity environments, and roaring demand for low-carbon, eco-friendly development in the digital industry."

It should be noted that at the time of this report, very few countries have reached the ‘advanced’ status, with the USA, UK, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic cited. France, Japan, and Canada are among the ‘Traditional’ markets, Columbia, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia lead the ‘Boutique’ category, while Chile and Poland are considered ‘Emerging.’

Also in this category are surprising players like China, which has made advances in adequacy, but still relies heavily on traditional mechanical storage, with South Korea also appearing in this quadrant, despite improvements in SSD penetration.

To assist stakeholders in advancing their future-proof data storage power revolution, Huawei has introduced a three-layered Metrics System based on 40 indicators, which cover regional, data center, and storage product levels and measuring them against the four dimensions at the heart of future-proof storage: magnitude, efficiency, groundwork, and advancement.

More details can be found in the report, where you can see where each of the 19 countries assessed currently sits in the global league table.

For more information and to read the report click here.