Where does your AI data actually live?

For regulated industries, the biggest AI bottleneck is increasingly not model performance but data residency, control, and auditability: organizations must prove where AI data lives, who can access it, and whether it can cross jurisdictional or enterprise boundaries without violating legal or regulatory requirements. That makes AI infrastructure a strategic governance decision, not just a technical one, with direct implications for risk, compliance, procurement, and the move from pilot to production. CIOs and IT leaders will need to choose architectures that can enforce data boundaries, satisfy auditors over time, and balance security, capability, and flexibility across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid options.