Insights from the Digital Realty & HPE Leadership Lounge

As enterprises move from AI experimentation to operational deployment, the challenges and opportunities around infrastructure, governance, and scale are becoming more pronounced. In our recent Leadership Lounge, Colin McLean, Chief Revenue Officer at Digital Realty, and Alexia Clements, SVP of Hybrid Cloud Solutions at HPE, offered actionable guidance for IT leaders navigating this critical transition. Here are the top five takeaways from their insightful discussion:

1. The time for AI at scale is now

AI is no longer a side project: it’s a strategic imperative. Enterprises are rapidly moving from pilot programs to full-scale production, and the decisions made today will shape their competitive landscape tomorrow.

“If you're not actively engaging with AI and exploring its potential now, you risk falling behind,” Clements emphasized.

IT leaders must proactively reassess their strategies to ensure scalability, cost efficiency, compliance, and operational readiness.

2. Enterprise AI Needs Enterprise Infrastructure

AI adoption is accelerating, but not every deployment can live in the public cloud. When data is sensitive, regulated, or mission-critical, enterprises need control, security, and compliance from end to end. That is where private cloud AI comes in.

“It’s not just about the models:; it’s about the entire environment that supports your AI strategy,” Clements stressed.

HPE Private Cloud AI, delivered through HPE GreenLake Cloud and deployed on Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL®, gives enterprises a purpose-built foundation for GenAI and LLM workloads. It supports secure, scalable inference and fine-tuning close to where the data lives and within the enterprise’s compliance boundary.

For healthcare, financial services, energy, and the public sector, this is how AI moves from pilot to production. Governed. High-performance. Fully in your control.

3. Connectivity is the critical enabler

In today’s hybrid cloud landscape, seamless interconnection is paramount. Whether your workloads are in the public cloud, private data centers, or colocation facilities, the ability to move data and applications securely and with low- latency is crucial.

“Interconnection is the connective tissue that ensures data flows smoothly and efficiently across your entire ecosystem,” McLean noted.

Modern infrastructure strategies must prioritize secure, low—latency connectivity to optimize performance and ensure regulatory compliance. This is essential for realizing the full value of your AI investments.

4. Simplifying complexity drives outcomes

IT leaders are increasingly looking for partners who can simplify the complexities of AI deployment with integrated, end-to-end solutions. A unified approach that combines infrastructure, interconnection, and AI-optimized platforms can significantly accelerate time-to-value and ease the transition from proof of concept to enterprise-wide impact.

“We aim to be a single point of contact for our customers, working together with partners like Digital Realty to remove friction and make scaling AI as straightforward as possible,” Clements stated.

By partnering with trusted providers, you can focus on driving business outcomes rather than managing the intricacies of AI infrastructure.

5. Prioritize for impact, not just possibility

While AI’s potential is vast, success depends on strategic prioritization. Identify the highest-value use cases that align with your business goals, build a secure and scalable foundation, and ensure alignment across your teams — from data scientists to business leaders.

“AI challenges your data, security, infrastructure, and organizational model all at once. Choose a platform you can trust and build on a solid foundation,” Clements advised.

Effective AI deployment requires a clear focus on outcomes, governance, and operational readiness. By prioritizing these elements, you can unlock the true business value of AI more quickly and efficiently.

Final thought

AI is testing every aspect of the enterprise, from data management to organizational structure. The leaders who act decisively, build on trusted foundations, and prioritize for impact will be the ones to unlock AI’s full potential and drive business success.

“The time is now — it’s go time,” Clements concluded.

Are you building an AI-ready foundation?

Watch the Leadership Lounge webinar Scaling Smart to hear the full conversation between Colin McLean, CRO at Digital Realty, and Alexia Clements, SVP, Hybrid Cloud Solutions at HPE, as they explore how enterprises are scaling AI with secure infrastructure.

From AI Pilots to Production: 5 Takeaways for IT Leaders