This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 8, 2025 – September 14, 2025

Enterprise cloud demands have evolved beyond the early drivers of adoption. Now, more than ever, businesses must be prepared to scale at a moment’s notice. Meeting unexpected user demand while maintaining service levels is an ongoing challenge.

At the same time, cloud workloads are becoming increasingly specialised, requiring optimised computing solutions across CPUs, DPUs (data processing units) and artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators to fully harness cloud-native architectures and frameworks.

As a result, cloud spending has become a critical operational priority. According to Flexera, nearly half of all workloads and data are now in the public cloud. In fact, 72% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) are prioritising cloud optimisation as a key organisational initiative to drive cost savings.

In Malaysia, the public cloud services market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.2% from 2022 to 2027, according to IDC. With rising adoption across sectors such as finance, manufacturing and healthcare, local enterprises are increasingly focused on optimising cloud usage to enhance digital agility. Government-led initiatives — such as the MyDIGITAL blueprint and the Cloud First strategy — have accelerated cloud migration in both the public and private sectors. Additionally, Malaysia’s ambition to become a regional digital hub reinforces the urgency for efficient, high-performance cloud infrastructure to support long-term economic growth and innovation.

These trends highlight the importance of right-sizing cloud solutions. Enterprises must ensure that their infrastructure is optimised for their specific business needs and workload requirements. The right cloud strategy delivers flexibility, security, performance and cost efficiency, all of which are fundamental to maintaining a competitive edge.

Cloud computing has long been the backbone of modern digital infrastructure, primarily built around general-purpose computing. However, the era of one-size-fits-all cloud solutions is rapidly fading in a business environment increasingly dominated by AI and high-performance computing workloads. Legacy cloud solutions struggle to meet the computational intensity of deep learning models, preventing organisations from fully realising the benefits of their investments.

At the same time, cloud-native architectures have become the standard, as businesses face mounting pressure to innovate, reduce time-to-market and optimise costs. Without a cloud-optimised infrastructure, organisations risk losing key operational advantages — such as maximising performance efficiency and minimising security risks in a multi-cloud environment — ultimately negating the benefits of cloud-native adoption.

Moreover, running AI workloads at scale without an optimised cloud infrastructure leads to unnecessary energy consumption, increasing both operational costs and environmental impact. This inefficiency strains financial resources and undermines corporate sustainability goals, which are now under greater scrutiny from stakeholders who prioritise green initiatives.

Beyond performance gains, security is yet another critical consideration when selecting cloud-optimised hardware that often goes underappreciated. Cloud-optimised hardware often provides a strong suite of advanced security features, such as confidential computing. These technologies ensure that sensitive data remains encrypted while in use, reducing the risk of physical DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module) attacks or virtual threats in hyperconverged infrastructure environments.

As the risks of data breaches continue to escalate — both in financial and reputational terms — organisations must recognise that leaving cloud environments unprotected is no longer an option. The rise of sophisticated cyber threats, from rogue hackers to nation-state-sponsored actors, makes enhanced cloud security a non-negotiable priority.

Your 2025 cloud optimisation playbook

Furthermore, as industries push forward with the adoption and deployment of AI technologies, IT leaders must ensure that their cloud infrastructure can support compute-intensive workloads while balancing cost, security and efficiency considerations. While each organisation’s computing needs are unique, IT teams embarking on hardware modernisation should consider the following:

● Performance: Are your cloud instances equipped for the level of compute performance your business requires? Cloud infrastructure must support a range of workloads, from web front-end applications to in-memory analytics and heavy transactional processing.

● Cost and efficiency: Can you reduce your cloud footprint by running the same workloads on fewer servers? Prioritising instances with high compute density allows businesses to run more VMs (virtual machines) or containers per server, achieving significant cost and energy efficiency benefits.

● Security: Does your cloud instance provide the level of data protection you require? Confidential computing helps mitigate security risks by protecting data in use, reducing vulnerabilities in virtualised environments.

● Ecosystem: Opting for processors powered by industry-standard x86 architecture simplifies cloud environments, making it easier to develop, maintain and migrate applications with minimal disruption.

For IT decision-makers, understanding the cost implications of each “unit of work” is crucial when selecting cloud instances. Traditional infrastructure forces enterprises to choose between over-provisioning resources — leading to unnecessary expenses — or under-provisioning, which can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cloud-optimised hardware changes this equation by enabling businesses to achieve more with fewer resources while maintaining high levels of performance, security and efficiency.

As cloud technologies continue to evolve, enterprises that prioritise modernisation will reap the benefits of seamless scalability, improved sustainability and a resilient digital foundation for future innovation.

Peter Chambers is managing director (APAC) at AMD

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