Hey there. I am leading the global cloud migration capability for a massive firm on our journey to exit 100+ datacenters. Massive investment, but if DC TCO is the starting point, and reducing the “bubble cost” of migration is a main priority (understanding that the value of cloud only starts when you get there and not during migration) the cloud is transformational to the business. Rehost quickly now (which btw can mostly be automated now), and let the opex savings fund your refactors later. Another observation is once cloud migrations start, DCs are losing tenants so the cost per node in the DC becomes higher with each completed migration. This is overlooked a lot of times. Bubble cost can go through the roof. Regarding AI, what I am seeing in the global marketplace are companies who are putting the cart before the horse trying to implement AI without having the cloud and data stack to get the benefit from it. If you want to transform with AI, get cloud right first.
