Daniel Beers, senior vice president of global data centre operations at Ardent Data Centers – a global developer of data centre environments for high performance computing and part of the Northern Data Group – addresses why in our AI world businesses should choose to access external computing power via the cloud rather than invest in on-site infrastructure.

The age-old argument of buying versus leasing has plagued organisations for centuries. From the decision to rent an office rather than purchasing the building, to hiring seasonal workers instead of permanent staff, even to signing up for a monthly rather than annual Adobe Photoshop subscription – everyday business is flush with dilemmas regarding the permanence of places, products and services.

Often there’s no clear-cut answer: leaders must consider factors such as payback time, storage space and control over the asset. But in the age of AI, with the technology progressing at a never-before-seen rate, buying participatory tools outright...

  • Although I agree with the above, one of the more interesting things to consider is what "storing data" means.

    Technically, data is temporarily stored as it is routed from source to the eventual destination. Given the nature of the internet, I don't believe that its possible to guarantee the route that data takes in all cases, predict yes.

    But yes, if I brought space on a server in Manchester (as I actually have), I would not like to find that the data on that server has suddenly moved to another location, and especially not one outside the UK jurisdiction.

    However, I haven't run a ping test or tracert on my server in a very long time. So, it could have been moved for all I know... (reputable hosting company, so exceedingly unlikely)

  • If I was looking tor access to AI cloud computing in today's political environment, I would first and foremost demand to know where my data was being physically stored and a guarantee that it would not be off loaded to another location, without my prior permission.

    The contract would also identify the imposition of very heavy penalties for failure to request permission for any location change.

    Peter Brooks

    Palm Bay