Rehan Shahid, Regional Channel & Alliances Manager – Middle East & Pakistan at Hitachi Vantara, spoke to Sandhya D’Mello, Technology Editor, CPI Media Group, about the transformational role of AI across its three defining phases—Perception, Generative, and the emerging Agentic AI—while addressing the complexities of hybrid cloud adoption and the urgent need for sustainable infrastructure.
The following excerpts explore how Hitachi Vantara is helping enterprises navigate this rapidly shifting landscape—simplifying complexity, maximizing ROI, and driving purposeful innovation.
Interview excerpts
Hitachi Vantara is known for driving innovation through AI. How do you see AI transforming enterprise IT operations, and what role does your company play in this evolution?
AI is truly transformative for enterprise IT operations, and at Hitachi Vantara, we’ve been at the forefront of this evolution for years. We view AI in two phases—Perception AI, which supports decision-making through data-driven insights, and Generative AI, which represents a more recent revolution fuelled by accelerated computing and GPU advancements. Generative AI, in particular, has democratised access to AI capabilities—enabling anyone to create new content, generate reports, and even build presentations simply by using prompts.
However, success with AI isn’t just about the technology—it’s about knowing how to engage with it. Being able to prompt effectively and interpret results critically is what turns AI into a collaborative tool rather than a disruptive force. This is where human-AI interaction becomes central.
At Hitachi Vantara, we don’t just provide AI infrastructure; we distinguish ourselves by offering end-to-end AI solutions. We help enterprises define their AI use cases, build the infrastructure, and—most importantly—align each initiative with measurable ROI. This turnkey approach empowers organizations to adopt AI meaningfully, ensuring that technology serves business objectives and not the other way around.
Sustainability is a growing priority in enterprise IT. How is Hitachi Vantara integrating sustainable practices into its solutions, and what impact do you see in the Middle East and Pakistan region?
Sustainability has become a critical focus for everyone—from individuals to organisations and nations. With the rise of AI-powered data centres and their massive energy consumption, the urgency around sustainable infrastructure has never been greater. For context, powering a single gigawatt AI data centre can cost up to $40 billion, with global projections pointing to the need for 200 gigawatts—amounting to a staggering $8 trillion. This kind of energy demand can rival that of entire cities, making sustainability both an environmental and financial imperative.
At Hitachi Vantara, we are taking a leadership role in driving sustainable enterprise IT. Our infrastructure is ranked among the world’s most energy-efficient. In fact, four of the top five systems globally rated by ENERGY STAR for sustainability are from Hitachi Vantara. We are also ranked number one in the Carbon Product Footprint (CPF) initiative, which assesses the total environmental impact of a system—from raw material sourcing and manufacturing to shipping and energy consumption during operation.
Our innovation in this space is underpinned by patented technologies that significantly reduce energy consumption. This is especially relevant for high-growth regions like the Middle East and Pakistan, where large-scale digital transformation and AI adoption are accelerating. As these regions invest in giga-scale projects, the need for sustainable IT infrastructure becomes even more crucial. Through our end-to-end CPF-qualified ecosystem and ongoing investment from Hitachi Ltd., we are committed to helping the region—and the world—achieve its long-term sustainability goals.
Hybrid cloud adoption is accelerating across industries. What are the biggest challenges organisations face in implementing a hybrid cloud strategy, and how does Hitachi Vantara help simplify this transition?
Hybrid cloud has emerged as the dominant model for enterprise IT, offering the flexibility to keep critical data under one’s own control while leveraging the scalability of the public cloud. However, implementing a successful hybrid cloud strategy comes with its own set of challenges.
One key challenge is determining which workloads should reside on-premises and which are better suited for the public cloud. This involves understanding application requirements, associated costs, and compliance or latency considerations. For “Day One” customers just starting their cloud journey, the complexity lies in assessing this balance. Meanwhile, “Day Two” customers—those already operating in the public cloud—often face cost overruns and begin re-evaluating what workloads might need to be brought back on-premises, a process known as repatriation.
At Hitachi Vantara, we simplify this transition by offering a flexible, unified infrastructure and data management platform that supports seamless workload mobility between on-prem and cloud environments. We help customers optimise hybrid strategies not only for performance and compliance, but also for cost efficiency and operational control. Our approach ensures mission-critical applications can run securely on-prem, with the agility to shift to the cloud during peak periods—enabling enterprises to strike the right balance and future-proof their IT operations.
Looking ahead, what key AI-driven and cloud innovations do you foresee shaping the future of IT infrastructure, and how is Hitachi Vantara positioning itself to support this transformation?
The future of IT infrastructure is being redefined by the rapid evolution of AI, moving through three transformative phases. We began with Perception AI, which supported data-driven decision-making and reporting. Today, we’re deep into Generative AI, which empowers users to create content through natural language prompts. But the next wave—Agentic AI—is where the most profound shift will happen.
Agentic AI refers to systems that can take autonomous actions without human intervention. For instance, imagine your system noticing you’re running late to a meeting and automatically notifying the next attendees. These AI agents will act on behalf of users in context-sensitive ways, making operations more seamless and responsive.
However, with this power comes responsibility. Organisations will need to define clear boundaries for what agents can and cannot do—just like HR departments manage human roles. In fact, IT teams will increasingly resemble HR functions, responsible for creating, nurturing, deploying, and managing these digital agents.
Hitachi Vantara is already preparing for this future. We’re actively developing AI agents for use across sectors including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and energy. Our work focuses not only on creating these agents but also on embedding them within secure, scalable, and sustainable hybrid cloud infrastructures. By combining our deep enterprise expertise with AI and cloud innovation, we’re helping businesses transition into a future where IT is intelligent, autonomous, and adaptive.
Image Credit: Hitachi Vantara
