The Cloud Repatriation Paradox: Why Australian Organisations Are Bringing Workloads Home – And How They’ll Find Balance in Hybrid Futures
Executive summary
Australian cloud and infrastructure leaders face an impossible equation: CFOs demanding cost reductions, boards mandating AI acceleration, and repatriation strategies that promise control but deliver complexity.
This report reveals why most hybrid infrastructure initiatives are destined to fail—and what the successful minority who are doing differently.
The numbers reveal a profound disconnect. 70% of CIOs plan to increase AI investment, allocating an average 4% of IT budgets to generative AI. At the same time, CFOs are scrutinising every dollar of cloud expenditure, having been promised cost savings that never materialised.
Meanwhile, organisations are pulling workloads back from public cloud to hybrid environments, driven by perceived security benefits and cost predictability that operational reality rarely delivers.
We’re witnessing three colliding forces that will determine infrastructure winners and losers over the next 12 months:
