Seagate Technology’s chairman emphasized the growing importance of data retention at the Six Five Summit’s AI Unleashed 2026 event on Tuesday, noting that 80% of the world’s data is currently stored on hard drives in data centers—a share that continues to expand.
The executive highlighted survey findings indicating that 55% of chief information officers have incurred significant financial losses after deleting data prematurely. The remarks underscored the industry’s shift from optimizing token efficiency to preserving critical datasets, a transition described by the moderator as occurring over roughly five months.
Storage technology is evolving beyond traditional spinning-disk systems, with Seagate pointing to advancements in photonics and laser-based engineering. The company also noted a move away from inaccessible cold storage toward nearline and object store architectures, which enable faster metadata transactions and more efficient data retrieval across storage tiers.
Seagate outlined three strategic priorities: increasing storage density for data centers, enhancing data accessibility at both the drive and system levels, and reinforcing data protection and sovereignty measures.
