ANZ firms shift cloud workloads to private & hybrid
Fri, 1st May 2026 (Today)
Dell Technologies has published IDC research showing that most organisations in Australia and New Zealand plan to move some cloud workloads from public cloud environments to private or hybrid settings.
The study also found ANZ is ahead of the wider Asia Pacific, Japan and China region in hybrid cloud implementation.
The findings point to a cloud strategy that is becoming more mixed rather than more concentrated. Public cloud remains part of many organisations' plans, but businesses in ANZ are increasingly seeking a blend of private, public and hybrid infrastructure as they respond to cybersecurity concerns, compliance pressures and the demands of newer workloads such as artificial intelligence.
In ANZ, 46.5% of organisations are actively implementing hybrid cloud, compared with 38.7% across APJC. At the same time, 89% are planning some degree of cloud repatriation, with workloads moved to public cloud set to return to private or hybrid environments.
Security focus
Cybersecurity emerged as a central factor in those decisions. Maintaining cybersecurity and compliance ranks among the leading challenges organisations face in their cloud journeys, alongside integrating with existing infrastructure and managing complex hybrid or multi-cloud environments.
That reflects a broader shift away from single-provider cloud strategies. Across Asia Pacific, businesses are adopting what the research describes as multi-hybrid cloud models, using a combination of environments to place workloads where they are best suited in terms of cost, control and operational needs.
For ANZ organisations, the move is not simply about pulling back from public cloud. The findings suggest businesses are modernising their public cloud use while investing in private and hybrid options, especially for workloads linked to AI and core business systems.
The top drivers of public cloud modernisation in ANZ were AI and GenAI life-cycle platforms, application development and testing, enterprise applications and human capital management, and supply chain management systems.
AI demand
Artificial intelligence is also shaping decisions about where infrastructure should sit. In ANZ, 57% of organisations said they plan to invest in on-premise infrastructure for AI, indicating that at least part of their AI computing needs will remain within their own estates rather than move entirely to third-party cloud services.
The main AI use cases identified by respondents were content marketing, intelligent risk assessment, investigation and fraud analytics, and sales planning and prospecting. Those applications often involve large volumes of business data, raising questions around security, latency, governance and cost.
Across the broader APAC region, 94% of surveyed organisations were considering or planning some form of cloud repatriation. Nearly half also named cloud migration as their top strategy for infrastructure modernisation.
Even so, migration is no longer being treated as a one-way move to public cloud. Instead, technology leaders are trying to build more portable systems that allow applications to move between environments as requirements change.
The study also identified technical debt as a growing issue. IDC found businesses across Asia Pacific are beginning to feel the effects of ageing systems and the difficulty of linking legacy infrastructure with newer cloud services, a problem that could grow as AI projects and data-intensive workloads expand.
The report covered private cloud modernisation trends, hybrid cloud adoption, workload repatriation drivers and infrastructure priorities across 11 markets in Asia Pacific. It drew on several IDC surveys conducted across industries in the region.
Jamie Humphrey, General Manager, Specialty Platforms, Dell Technologies Australia and New Zealand, said businesses are treating infrastructure change as a broader strategic issue.
"Organisations are telling us that continuous modernisation isn't just an IT directive - it's a business necessity," Humphrey said. "With the rise of multi-hybrid cloud and new demands from AI, companies want the freedom to choose, evolve, and innovate, backed by flexible, open architectures."