A significant misalignment between CEOs and IT executives on both readiness and actual AI deployment could hinder China's long-term leadership potential in the AI race. According to NetApp's latest report, "The AI Space Race," 92% of CEOs in China report having active AI projects, but only 74% of Chinese IT executives agree.
Some 68% of Chinese CEOs consider their organisations AI-ready, but only 58% of their IT counterparts agree.
AI space race
The report also found that every player worldwide has the potential to thrive in the global race for AI dominance. Every country surveyed sees itself as AI-ready and every region views itself as competitive in the global AI innovation race.
"The companies and regions that can get their data ready for AI will be able to generate differentiating business insights and unlock operational efficiencies that launch them ahead of their rivals," said Gabie Boko, CMO at NetApp.
The report suggests that China's focus on rapid deployment is aimed at making an early impact, with 35% of the country's respondents ranking scalability as a top capability, 11% higher than the global average.
Success factors
Russell Fishman, senior director of Product Management at NetApp, emphasised that data infrastructure, data management, and agile, secure, and scalable cloud solutions are among the most significant success factors in the AI Space Race.
"Winning organisations will be those that recognise that they require an intelligent data infrastructure in place to ensure unfettered AI innovation... As organisations around the world embrace AI at scale, NetApp is there to help them extract maximum value from their data by creating an AI-ready data infrastructure that unifies, manages and harnesses their data for optimal AI outcomes," he said.
