Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference 2025 London: Day 2 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference, taking place this week in London. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. You can read the highlights from Day 1 here.

On Day 2 from the conference, we are helping infrastructure & operations (I&O) leaders get ready for AI agents, outlining options when mitigating geopolitical risks of workloads, and discussing the I&O skills needed in the future. Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

Presented by Roger Williams, VP Analyst, Gartner

Agentic AI promises transformation, as well as challenges to the management of IT infrastructure and operations (I&O). In this session, Roger Williams, VP Analyst at Gartner, explained what an agent-centric I&O is and its key aspects to help I&O leaders get ready for AI agents.

• “AI agents are poised to be the biggest disruptor of I&O since the introduction of the cloud and smartphones.”

• “AI inference and AI agents herald a new era of business computing and require agent-centric I&O to harness their potential.”

• “Agent-centric I&O accommodates both AI-based agents and the human agents that are still needed to do what AI agents cannot (yet) do.”

• “Agent-centric I&O is an archetype for organizing IT I&O. It is designed to exploit agentic AI in making autonomous and semiautonomous decisions to act toward organizational goals.”

• “Agent-centric I&O requires changes in all aspects of I&O – infrastructure, operating models and organizational data.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.

Presented by Alessandro Galimberti, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

Organizations are becoming increasingly concerned about their reliance on international cloud hyperscalers. In this session, Alessandro Galimberti, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner, explained what geopatriation is and the options I&O leaders have when mitigating geopolitical risks of their workloads.

• “Completely eliminating dependency on global tech vendors without losing significant functionalities or increasing risks is, at present, nearly impossible.” 

• “If your organization considers local alternatives to global hyperscalers, be mindful that local providers often offer greater sovereignty, but may lack enterprise-grade capabilities in security, availability, resiliency and value-added cloud services.”

• “To mitigate geopolitical risk, assess each workload. Score the criticality of the application delivery and its data.”

• Categorize each workload in four options that mitigate geopolitical risks:

  • Reinforce: remain in place but mitigate near-term risk and improve long-term resilience.

  • Redeploy: Move to a local region or use a sovereign (or distributed) cloud from the same provider.

  • Remove: Lift and shift to local provider.

  • Repatriate: Lift and shift on-premises.

• “Reinforce, redeploy, remove and repatriate are not mutually exclusive, and most organizations will likely implement more than one for different workloads.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.

Presented by Mark Cleary, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Today's teams frequently lack the skills required to proactively meet business needs. The rapid pace of ongoing transformations renders existing skills inadequate for many organizations. I&O leaders must prioritize development plans to cultivate the most essential skills within their teams. In this session, Mark Cleary, Senior Director Analyst, provided guidance on effective upskilling methods that benefit both employees and organizations.

• “Almost 8 in 10 CIOs and business leaders agree that in 10 years, the skills and knowledge in our organization will bear little resemblance to those we have today.”

• Key issues I&O leaders are facing are: 

  • How will AI impact I&O skills now and in the future?

  • What market dynamics are affecting organizations’ ability to skill for I&O?

  • What are the critical, in-demand skills and competencies for I&O?

• “AI leaders sit at the intersection of AI expertise, IT skills and business/strategic knowledge. I&O leaders looking to fully leverage GenAI capabilities need to branch beyond IT skills and develop domain understanding of the business while also expanding specific AI skills.”

• “To meet evolving expectations without expending substantial effort on disappointing development initiatives, you need to adjust your talent management strategies to make the most of your existing leadership team. 

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with the Gartner expert by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.