2024 state and local IT forecast: AI, sustainability and cloud

2023 has been full of technology advancements for government at all levels—between the surge in interest and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the ever-present push to focus on cloud technology to protect government data. Meanwhile, state and local agencies are continuing to focus on reshaping their sustainability goals by investing in solutions that benefit the planet.

As we enter a new year, AI; sustainability; and integrated, hybrid, and multi-cloud technologies will remain at the forefront of state and local IT leaders’ minds. By focusing on solutions that fit the organization’s specific needs, while mapping to these focus areas, state and local IT leaders can more efficiently and effectively deliver services to citizens.

Embracing the AI boom
AI has the potential to transform government agencies at all levels—and we’re already seeing it improve health, safety, national security and citizen service while also driving better, more informed, data-driven decision-making. The recent AI executive order is a step in the right direction to promote safe, secure and trustworthy AI, as it puts structure around growth and adoption. In 2024, state and local agencies should lean toward AI solutions that are supported by a reliable, secure data infrastructure that enables them to utilize a smaller infrastructure footprint to reduce the burden of storage management and accelerate ransomware and rapid disaster recovery.

As AI becomes more mainstream in government operations, we’ll see agencies better understand, invest and apply AI-specific solutions to their agency needs. According to recent research, 73 percent of IT buyers say that AI will require data management upgrades of some kind. Implementing AI within state and local government processes and operations can be highly effective in enabling organizations to achieve greater agility, increase citizen satisfaction, improve operational excellence, and accelerate innovation.

A clean energy future
State and local agencies are amping up sustainability efforts—and governments at all levels are working toward maintaining reliable citizen services while reducing emissions. As organizations continue to focus on reducing their carbon footprint, prioritizing sustainable systems is good for the environment and helps lead to good government for a clean energy future.

While government is making strides in sustainability initiatives, organizations should take more creative steps to improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and save taxpayer dollars in the year ahead. According to new research, a majority of all IT buyers (51 percent) predict they will invest in sustainable technology in the next five years. State and local organizations should leverage private sector partners to procure technologies that meet their mission and sustainability needs.

Architectural efficiency lowers costs, enables organizations to meet their most demanding requirements, and helps build sustainable data storage and management solutions. Alignment to green initiatives, including power, energy, and other sustainability goals, enables IT to advocate for more sustainable platform choices.

Driving cloud solutions
With the pace of digital transformation, agencies must streamline and accelerate technologies to deploy integrated cloud, hybrid, and multicloud architectures and upgrade the legacy applications that they currently rely on. According to NASCIO, 60 percent of state CIOs say they are focusing on integrating a cloud strategy for moving applications to the cloud.

In the coming year, as technologies continue to evolve, state and local agencies should implement the most advanced IT systems, including container-based applications, as they provide agencies with a complete data storage infrastructure solution capable of delivering premier citizen services. Container applications give IT development teams the tools to modernize their applications, as they can gain speed, agility and scale, while offering easy backup and restore and enhanced disaster recovery.

Investing in right-sized efficient storage systems and applications, containers can help agencies elevate citizen service capabilities while addressing the critical areas of cyber protection, legacy modernization and cloud services. A clear cloud strategy is essential to unlocking critical insights and advancing state and local missions.

Looking to 2024
As we step into 2024, the convergence of AI, sustainability and cloud technologies underscores a commitment to innovation for state and local governments. Embracing these advancements ensures not only operational excellence but also reaffirms the organizations’ dedication to a sustainable, technologically robust future for all citizens.

State and local IT leaders can prioritize investments in technology solutions that will grow with agencies, build strong defenses and use new technologies that will set their organizations up for success.

Michael Wiseman is the vice president, public sector, Pure Storage, leading the sales team responsible for state, local and education customers in the United States. In his current role, Wiseman is responsible for developing a team to enable the transformation of how public sector customers protect, serve and educate their constituents by leveraging technology to connect, innovate and lead. Prior to joining Pure Storage, Wiseman spent 17 years at Cisco.