Beancounters at cloud storage firm Wasabi reckon most UK outfits are upping AI infrastructure spend, yet only a quarter can point to positive ROI right now.
Wasabi’s fourth annual Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index is based on the views of 1,700 IT decision makers surveyed globally and 200 in the UK. The report says UK infrastructure and storage spend is being reshaped by AI buildouts and cloud data security headaches.
Wasabi says UK businesses are pouring money into the plumbing that keeps AI running, with data, storage and compute taking 62 per cent of AI budgets, while 36 per cent goes to AI software and SaaS. It claims that just three per cent of UK respondents plan to lower AI infrastructure spending, while 56 per cent expect to increase budgets and 42 per cent plan to hold steady.
The kit is not paying off for most yet, with only 25 per cent of UK organisations reporting positive ROI on AI projects today, though 48 per cent expect to see positive returns within the next year. Wasabi says the top challenge holding AI back is data storage, with cost, access and management blamed ahead of compute pain and poor data quality.
Hybrid is the default for AI data sprawl, with 72 per cent of UK respondents saying they are deploying a mix of on-prem and public cloud storage to support AI workflows.
Wasabi says respondents favour public cloud storage for data retrieval, ingest and aggregation at the start, then model retention and archiving at the end, effectively using public cloud to bookend the pipeline.
Wasabi, director of strategy and market intelligence Andrew Smith said: “When we look at revenue allocations at the highest level of the public cloud services market – the vast majority comes from software/SaaS, not infrastructure services (IaaS).”
“But emerging AI workloads and initiatives are actually changing this dynamic. What’s fascinating to see within our survey results this year is how most AI budget allocation is going toward infrastructure, not SaaS. In other words, it’s the opposite of what we might expect from a traditional market standpoint, and it’s a great illustration of the critical role cloud storage and cloud infrastructure services play in this generational buildup of AI-enabled solutions and services.”
Wasabi, founder and CEO Dave Friend said: “As organisations scale AI initiatives, they face mounting data storage and data quality challenges that can quickly erode ROI if not managed effectively.”
“Cost-efficient, reliable storage is essential to ensure high-quality data is readily available for AI models, enabling better outcomes without unsustainable infrastructure costs. This drives home the need for affordable, secure, high-performance cloud storage so budgets stay in line with expectations, and data remains secure and accessible.”
The survey paints a nervous security picture, with only 51 per cent of UK organisations saying they are completely confident their data would meet regulatory or compliance requirements in a third-party audit. Wasabi says 62 per cent are not completely confident their data would remain operational and unaltered after a cyberattack, well above a stated global average of 53 per cent, which makes cloud trust look shakier than the sales decks suggest.
When asked why confidence is lacking, 41 per cent of UK respondents said their public cloud provider was not providing the necessary security features to mitigate cyberattacks. Wasabi reckons that leaves a gap for providers to push broader storage security tooling rather than just shouting about resilience.
The money leak is the fee model, with Wasabi saying fees account for 48 per cent of total UK cloud storage costs rather than capacity, and it claims this has remained stubbornly consistent over four years of the index. It said that in 2025, 46 per cent of UK respondents exceeded their cloud storage budget, driven by increased usage, growth and migration, with fees making the mess worse, and 84 per cent citing at least one fee-related reason for overspending.
