Asia Pacific Enterprises Plan to Increase AI Investment by 25%

SINGAPORE, Sept. 22, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Digital Realty, the world’s largest cloud- and carrier-neutral data center platform, has released its 2026 Global Data Insights Survey (GDIS), revealing strong momentum in AI investment across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. According to the survey, nearly six in ten (59%) of the region’s respondents expect their organizations to increase AI investment by more than 25% in 2026 compared with 2025, a figure that is slightly higher than the global average of 55%.

In Australia, enterprises are further along in converting AI deployment into financial returns. One-third (33%) of organizations say they are currently realizing AI return on investment (ROI), more than double the APAC average of 16%. Nearly half (47%) also have real-time AI in deployment, compared with 36% across the region.

In Japan, compliance features prominently in how respondents assess AI strategy and infrastructure decisions. Thirty percent of respondents rank ensuring compliance with AI and data privacy regulations as the top requirement for a successful AI strategy, compared with 18% across APAC. When deciding where to host AI workloads, 22% rank regulatory compliance as their top consideration, compared with 12% regionally.

In Singapore, infrastructure readiness is becoming an important consideration as enterprises advance their AI plans. Half (50%) of respondents cite a lack of specialized AI infrastructure as a challenge, compared with 40% across APAC, while 39% are already reporting measurable business outcomes from AI.

In South Korea, enterprises emphasize connecting distributed data sources to support AI execution. Nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents rank reliable interconnection first among requirements for AI strategy success, compared with 14% across APAC. Almost half (46%) report integrated interconnection across key cloud and infrastructure platforms or architecture centered on dynamic, on-demand interconnection.

The survey indicates that decisions around infrastructure and data location are becoming more closely tied to how AI is deployed. Across APAC, 92% of respondents tie their data-location strategy to their AI plans. At the same time, 88% already follow a distributed data approach, meaning enterprise data, applications, and workloads increasingly sit across multiple locations and environments.

Connecting those environments remains a challenge. Only 22% of APAC respondents describe their hybrid infrastructure as fully integrated, even as enterprises increasingly need to bring together data, compute, clouds, and partners across markets. This creates a more complex infrastructure requirement for organizations operating regionally. The location of AI workloads needs to account for factors such as infrastructure availability, performance, and local operating requirements, while remaining connected to the wider enterprise architecture.

Digital Realty's survey, which surveyed 2,131 IT decision-makers across 19 countries, including 707 respondents across seven APAC markets: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, highlights the diverse approaches and challenges enterprises face as they integrate AI into their operations. The full report is available at Global Data Insights Survey 2026.