Cloud skills shortage hits hybrid cloud and Gen AI progress: Report

Indian enterprises believe hybrid cloud adoption is critical to unlock the power of Generative AI (GenAI). However the actual implementation of hybrid cloud is challenging due to workforce deficiencies in cloud skills, a new report published by tech major IBM on Monday said. 
 
According to the report, 68% of Indian business leaders face a significant challenge in their digital transformation journeys due to a lack of cloud skills, which is higher than the global average of 58%. The report also shows that cloud leaders are concerned about the challenges associated with the privacy and confidentiality of data and information when adopting GenAI. 
 
Earlier this year, Udemy's 2023 Workplace Learning Trends report stated that the job market in India is growing rapidly, with 40% of Indian employees needing reskilling in the next five years and 60% needing to upskill to be market-ready. 
 
Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President-Technology at IBM India and South Asia, said, "As GenAI gains momentum in India, organisations need to harness the power of a robust hybrid cloud approach to tackle challenges that are coming to the forefront. Investing in the right cloud technologies and tools will help businesses address increasing security and compliance concerns and achieve their sustainability goals." 
 
The report does offer some positive news, noting that about 64% of hybrid cloud users in India now have a formal, organisation-wide policy and approach for the use of GenAI. Ramaswamy also added that it is encouraging to see that around 85% of respondents are creating new job positions to meet the demand for cloud skills in the Generative AI era. 
 
At the HPE Discover 2023 in Barcelona held on November 29-30, it was announced that the massive data needs of generative AI will drive companies to choose hybrid storage options that include both cloud and on-premises hardware by 2024. The vendor also introduced a range of hybrid cloud offerings at the event to help enterprises optimise generative AI model development and implementation. 
 
Last month, IBM announced the rebuilding of its security information and event management (SIEM) offering, QRadar, with a cloud-native architecture to help organisations scale their hybrid cloud and AI workloads. Additionally, IBM has been collaborating with VMware on various cloud and AI projects for a long time, including providing cloud solutions with AI functionalities. The companies also offer services through the Joint Innovation Lab. 
 
In August, Qualcomm released a white paper titled “The Future of AI is Hybrid”, where they argue that for AI to reach its full potential, it needs to be processed both on the cloud and at the edge. Computing at the edge would address issues such as cost, energy use, reliability, latency, and privacy, which are all factors that make scaling and growing technology challenging. The paper emphasizes the need for multiple partners and solutions for AI to optimise fully, but this lesson applies to all technology moving forward, the researcher said. 
 
Despite the progress in this space, Sanjay Kalra, VP Product Management at cloud security company Zscaler, highlighted that organisations are feeling pressure to use generative AI tools despite significant security concerns. Over 90% of Indian organisations consider tools like ChatGPT to be a potential security risk, but most continue to use them in some guise in their business. 
 
The findings based on a survey by Zscaler found that the lack of resources to monitor the usage of cloud and generative AI act as a hindrance to effectively use these tools; 75% of them pointed to the lack of skills or talent to implement this technology.