KUALA LUMPUR: More than 90% of Malaysian respondents to a Synology survey recognise the importance of AI-ready infrastructure in improving workflow efficiency and productivity, but data security and privacy remain the biggest challenges to adoption.
The survey found that 70% of respondents cited data security and privacy as an obstacle to AI adoption, followed by data quality and availability at 42%, and fragmented data at 40%.
Synology Southeast Asia head Antoine Yang said businesses needed reliable information and dependable systems to translate AI adoption into sustained productivity gains.
“AI creates value when it helps people do their work better and enables the business to respond more effectively to its customers.
“Our focus is to help organisations sustain those gains as adoption grows, with data they can trust and a dependable path to recovery when disruption occurs,” he said at the Synology Annual Press Event 2026 here recently.
Yang said businesses often kept information across separate systems, including personal computers, cloud storage and messaging platforms, making it harder to retrieve complete and reliable information for AI applications.
He said companies also needed to determine which data should remain on-premises and which could be used with cloud-based services, particularly when handling sensitive or confidential information.
The survey found that 68.6% of Malaysian respondents prioritised hybrid infrastructure or on-premises systems, compared with 12.5% who prioritised public cloud, indicating a preference for greater control over business-critical data.
Meanwhile, 74% expressed confidence in their ability to recover quickly from ransomware attacks while keeping backup data protected, although only 26.4% said they were very confident.
Nearly 40% of respondents also reported having no visibility into how data submitted to third-party AI tools was handled, highlighting concerns over data governance as businesses incorporate AI into their operations.
Yang also highlighted the growing need to protect businesses against evolving cyber threats, including malicious code targeting software supply chains. He said organisations needed to ensure data could be monitored, audited and protected as AI applications became more widely used.
Synology Malaysia country manager Jason Sin said organisations needed to ensure essential services could recover when disruptions occurred as they expanded their data infrastructure.
The company is focusing on three priorities for businesses adopting AI: scalable data infrastructure, stronger cyber resilience and AI adoption with greater control over business data.
Its 2026 product launches include PAS7700, its first all-flash NVMe enterprise storage system designed for mission-critical workloads, alongside new-generation FS and RS series storage systems.
The company has also introduced storage tiering and data-reduction capabilities in DiskStation Manager 7.4 to help organisations improve storage efficiency.
For data protection, its ActiveProtect appliances combine dedicated backup infrastructure, centralised management, immutable protection and automated isolation to help safeguard backup copies when production systems are compromised.
The updated ActiveProtect Manager 2.0 expands support for enterprise platforms, including Nutanix AHV and Proxmox VE, allowing organisations to protect a wider range of IT environments through a single platform.
Synology has also expanded the ActiveProtect range with the DP5200, a compact 1U appliance designed to protect different workloads without recurring subscription fees.
In workplace collaboration, its Synology Office Suite offers on-premises tools with AI assistance for document revision, presentation content creation and spreadsheet formula discovery. Synology ChatPlus and Meet extend these capabilities to team messaging and online meetings.
The company is also targeting physical security applications through its DVA7400 surveillance appliance, which uses AI-assisted detection and search to help users investigate incidents more efficiently.
Looking ahead, Synology previewed upcoming scale-out storage and hybrid surveillance solutions designed to support enterprises as their data volumes and operational requirements grow.
“When businesses can trust how their data is managed and protected, they are better positioned to turn AI initiatives into lasting business results,” Sin said.