By 2030, 44% of AI infrastructure is projected to run on hybrid and edge deployments, shifting control away from public cloud platforms, according to a Futurum Research report. IBM is responding to this demand with a self-hosted deployment option for IBM Bob, its agentic software development platform, enabling AI-powered software development within a customer’s private infrastructure, the company says. “The future of enterprise AI will depend on security, governance and sovereignty,” says Neel Sundaresan, GM of AI and Automation at IBM, as organizations increasingly prioritize control over data residency and AI governance.

Futurum Research Projects 44% AI Shift to Private Servers

A projected shift in AI infrastructure deployment will see hybrid and edge environments account for 44% of the market by 2030, according to new data from Futurum Research, signaling a move away from exclusive reliance on public cloud solutions. The increasing desire for control is particularly acute for organizations handling sensitive data, such as intellectual property or customer information, and those operating in highly regulated sectors.

Sixty-eight percent of executives surveyed by IBM’s Institute for Business Value reported challenges in meeting data residency and sovereignty requirements across different geographic locations, a difficulty now potentially mitigated by the ability to keep AI processing on-premises. IBM Bob’s self-hosted deployment allows enterprises to deploy AI capabilities where their code and data already reside, eliminating the need to transfer sensitive information to external services.

Supported models can be run on-premises, even in air-gapped environments, or connected to external model services through hybrid configurations, offering a flexible approach to AI integration, according to the company. According to IBM, “Bob’s self-hosted deployment provides a way for enterprises to bring agentic AI directly to those environments so they can benefit from the technology while maintaining security, compliance, and operational control.” The ability to dictate data access, security policies, and overall AI governance is becoming increasingly important as AI systems become more deeply integrated into critical business processes.

The predicted decline in public cloud share, projected to fall to 46% by 2030, emphasises the growing appeal of these hybrid and edge solutions. IBM Bob’s deployment flexibility is designed to address the realities of enterprise modernization, where applications and data are often distributed across a variety of environments, including on-premises systems and private clouds, allowing organizations to use AI for software development and modernization across their existing infrastructure.