FEAR & GREED | Business News
Q+A: AI is creating a data explosion — and most businesses aren’t ready
08 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is causing the data explosion in businesses today?
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more. I'm Sean Aylmer. Artificial intelligence is driving an extraordinary surge in data creation, and with that comes a huge challenge around how businesses... store, manage and move that information efficiently.
Increasingly, the conversation around AI isn't just about software or models, but the physical infrastructure needed to support it all. Today, a look at why data storage is becoming such a critical part of the AI economy. Jeff Park is ANZ Country Manager at Seagate Technology, a great supporter of this podcast. Jeff, welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A.
Thanks, Sean. It's great to be here.
Who would have thought data could become sexy?
Yeah.
How long have you been around data for?
Well, I've been fortunate enough to be with the company just over 20 years in different positions and different roles. But I've been in Australia for the last 17 plus years.
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Chapter 2: How is data storage evolving to support AI demands?
Okay. So tell us about the company. So what does Seagate do?
So Seagate is one of the world's leader in a high density storage infrastructure provider. And we provide storage requirement for enterprises, consumers in all broad spectrum of the industry.
Okay, so if we break that down, any business has data. Correct. And if you're a bank, you've got huge amounts of data. That has to sit somewhere. Correct. And when you're talking about density, I presume you mean as in dense, we're able to store a lot of data in a relatively small space. Correct. Spot? Yeah. Okay.
Chapter 3: Why is clean and meaningful data crucial for businesses?
I'm with you so far. The next point, how do you store it? Physically, how do you store it?
Yeah. So, well, storing a data started from when men chiseled on the rock, right? Yeah. But it evolved, obviously, and has evolved significantly in the last 20 years and more so in the last five years because the demand for the data storage has been growing exponentially. Whether you realize it or not, you refer about banking, but our medical record, the kids' education is based on online.
Everything is creating data. We're creating data as we're creating this podcast. And everybody is now content creator one way or another. And a lot of businesses, enterprises are relying on this enriched data to stay competitive.
And the idea then is to have kind of clean data because the cleaner the data, the more accurate it is. Is that right? Yes.
Chapter 4: What challenges do businesses face with data management?
I like that, you know, Sean. The idea of having a large data is important, but you also want to make sure that your data is meaningful. Now, in the past, there were a lot of businesses just simply stored data as a part of a regulatory requirement. But now... With the AI, they're starting to unleash the value that's been hidden in the data.
So we talk about some interesting project with the mining companies, the medical imaging institutes, they're all seeing a great benefit of having these datas that will give us a real advantage for the human race.
So when you talk about sort of unlocking that value in data, is there good data and bad data? I suppose that's what I'm trying to get to.
Yeah, well, I think it starts with you decide what data is relevant for your business or your clients or the industry you're in. So you basically have to make a filter to make sure – you store the meaningful data information. There's also those sensitivities around the privacy. Some people don't want their face to be recognized when they walk into stores.
So it starts from the regulatory requirement, but also looking at the business, they look at, okay, what data is gonna give us the edge to stay competitive in the industry?
Okay.
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Chapter 5: How are data centers adapting to future needs?
And is that something that management boards are now taking much more? I mean, I'm sure they're taking much more notice of it. Do they have an understanding of what you're talking about?
The conversation has sharply changed in the last six months because only a few years ago, a lot of enterprises thought data storage is a part of IT infrastructure and it's a part of cost. But now with AI unleashing a lot of data within, people are realizing, wait, we gotta take a look at what we're storing and we gotta plan what we're gonna do with data. So yes, absolutely.
It's becoming a very high level discussion because not only there's a cost involved, it gives that edge that all businesses are looking for.
Okay, so let's move on to data centres and that type of thing. We hear about the need to build data centres, the need to build energy supply for those data centres. At the moment, do we have enough data centres for what we have now? Are we building for the future? I'm kind of trying to get my head around how big an issue the lack of data centres is right now in 10 years' time.
Oh, I think let's start looking back 10 years ago where we were. I think for many businesses, they were able to afford to have this kind of data centers on-premises and manage their own with IT managers. Now, as the business grows, as the demand grows, they're looking at ways to optimize and provide scalable options with the data centers.
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Chapter 6: What role does data play in maintaining a competitive edge?
So I almost look at data center demand as... our housing problem in Australia. We have a lot of houses, but there isn't enough. So do we build 10,000 houses or do we build high rise dense apartment where it's more efficient in terms of energy? And also you can deploy much scalable. So it's almost like you look at existing data centers, but you gotta apply a very different logic.
You mentioned about the energy, people are conscious about scalability, but they also want to make sure they're reusing the legacy infrastructure as well. So not building whole thing new, but utilizing what we have already invested in the five, 10 years is also a critical area that people need to consider.
Okay, so I'm gonna keep the analogy of the house. So in a home, you might put solar on your roof because suddenly it becomes more efficient. Is that what you're talking about in terms of storing data? Actually getting it more efficient for the stuff we already have. And then as we build, everyone now, they probably put fiber optics straight to their house.
Chapter 7: How can businesses prepare for the future of data storage?
They probably put solar on, stuff that we didn't do 10 years ago. And that's the sort of gist of what you're saying.
Well, there's two things. There's a data center that, as we know, that a lot of enterprises utilize for their business, but as well for consumers. We don't longer have a device that stores my laptop backups or phone backups. We use a lot of services. So that all goes into data center. So data center is a backbone of a lot of enriched contents that we enjoy, but at the same time,
A lot of IoT, Internet of Things, pushing the storage to be closer to where actions are. So, for example, NVRs, they need to have... NVI, but it gives an acronym. NVR is a surveillance. Small businesses will have surveillance systems. That has to be on 24 hours. So if something goes wrong, you still need to have a secure footage surveillance for the premises.
So sometimes you need that on-site storage.
Chapter 8: What are the physical methods of storing data today?
So it's going to go hand in hand. But I think the analogy about the apartment is you need to have a very dense data centers that are more cost efficient as well as energy conscious as well.
Okay. And that's kind of where Seagate then gets involved into that efficiency approach.
Correct. So Seagate technology has been heavily investing on increasing aerial density. So what aerial density means is we store more bits of data in a same disk size without physically expanding the size. So if you look at that from perspective, we get a great capacity in a same physical footprint that uses less power.
So you actually achieve few things along the way in achieving the high area density.
What's the size of the prize in all this? Or maybe it's the opportunity cost if we don't do it.
Yeah, I think the cost is there definitely a big factor because it's not just upfront CapEx, but it's OpEx. But more and more businesses and institutes realize the value of having this enriched data and moving forward, it's going to create more. So they need to be ready now and they need to be planning for the next five, 10 years rather than trying to catch up.
Okay, so Jeff Park from Seagate. If there's a business listening this morning, right, and they're thinking, oh, wow, I don't think enough about data. I don't know how clean my data is. I don't know how efficient it is. I know it's stored somewhere. What should they do today? What do they need to do? What's the first step?
I think they really need to have a consult and realize how much data they have been accumulating, whether you've been in a business for five years or 20 years. Because the rate of the data generation has been exponential for the last two decades.
So if you're here for the next five, 10 years, you need to really sit down and look at how much data have you accumulated and how you're going to harness that data that you have accumulated, but also think about what is the plan for the next five, 10 years to make sure that you stay ahead of the competitions.
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