“The convergence of sustainability and AI presents our largest market opportunity for 2025,” says Sheila Rohra, CEO of Hitachi Vantara, in CRN’s "CEO Outlook 2025" article. “With data centers projected to double their current 3% share of global power consumption by decade’s end, there’s a tremendous opportunity in retrofitting existing facilities rather than building new ones.”
CRN’s “CEO Outlook 2025” explores where 168 CEOs from tech vendors and IT solution providers are placing their bets in 2025 and tackle emerging technology opportunities, including for AI-based offerings and advancing enterprise digital transformations.
Hitachi Vantara’s Key Areas of Technology Investment
Rohra sees Hitachi Vantara’s opportunity to partner with the channel to deliver AI-driven solutions that optimize infrastructure, increase performance, and reduce both cost and the carbon footprint. This includes implemented distributed data center architectures that span public cloud, colocation, and on-premises solutions as well as innovations like GPU resource sharing.
Hitachi Vantara is investing in solutions that support sustainable, efficient operations, especially in four areas: energy-efficient data management platforms, AI-driven solutions for power grid consolidation, integrated systems that will revolutionize data center infrastructure management, and technologies that support sustainable operations innovations, including sustainability focused SLAs.
AI Will Go from Hype to Pragmatic This Year
Rohra predicts that 2025 will be the year that AI becomes pragmatic for organizations.
“Our approach will focus on outcomes-oriented AI solutions that deliver measurable ROI,” she said in CRN CEO Outlook. She identifies three areas that will have significant impact:
- Enhanced efficiency through AI-ready infrastructure and targeted use of technologies like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Small Language Models (SLMs).
- Improved sustainability through AI-driven optimization of data center operations and power consumption.
- More thoughtful application of AI that reduces unnecessary demand while ensuring systems can access unique, fresh, and relevant information.
Customer Challenges are Partner Opportunities
The biggest challenge for customers, says Rohra, is to manage the exponential growth in data center energy consumption while maintaining performance. Other top challenges including navigating the regulatory standards around sustainability around the world; implementing effective data management strategies that balance efficiency, cybersecurity, and environmental impact; and scaling infrastructure to support AI workloads in a sustainable and cost-effective way; and integrating sustainability into existing business operations while maintaining competitive pricing.
Partners can help customers overcome these challenges with modular, scalable solutions that address the intersection of sustainability, AI, and operational efficiency. She advises partners to focus on four opportunity areas: providing energy-efficient solutions that optimize infrastructure while reducing the environmental impact; supporting the transition to distributed data center models; implementing AI-driven solutions that deliver measurable ROI; and helping customers navigate complex regulatory requirements while maintaining operational excellence.
Go Deeper
Read Sheila Rohra’s profile in CEO Outlook 2025.
Image Credit: CRN, Hitachi Vantara