Rebecca PY MALAYSIA, 11 JUNE 2026 – Financial services organisations across the globe are accelerating their adoption of artificial intelligence, but a new industry report warns that ambition is fast outpacing readiness. Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, has released findings from its eighth annual Financial Sector Enterprise Cloud Index report, shedding light on a widening gap between AI deployment goals and the infrastructure, governance, and operational maturity needed to support them.
The report, based on a survey of 1,600 cloud, IT, and engineering executives conducted by Wakefield Research in November 2025, found that shadow AI has emerged as one of the most pressing risks in the sector. Some 66% of IT executives reported that employees are already using unsanctioned AI tools, with 86% acknowledging that such behaviour introduces significant business risk.
Governance and process complexity are proving to be the most stubborn obstacles to scaling AI. According to the findings, process complexity accounts for 38% of barriers, while organisational factors such as leadership gaps and skills shortages account for 34%. Technical limitations trail behind at 28%, signalling that the challenge is less about technology and more about institutional readiness.
Data sovereignty is emerging as another flashpoint. While 79% of respondents said they prioritise data sovereignty, 62% continue to run containerised workloads in the public cloud, creating what the report terms a growing Sovereignty Debt, a tension between regulatory intent and operational reality.
On the infrastructure front, containerisation is gaining momentum, driven by the demands of AI. Some 90% of respondents said AI is accelerating container adoption, with 89% expecting containerisation to continue growing. Despite this progress, 68% acknowledged that their current infrastructure is not fully equipped to handle AI workloads on-premises, and nearly 64% rely on third-party providers to fill the gap.
Jay Tuseth, Vice President for APJ at Nutanix, noted that the competitive edge in the region will increasingly depend not on the sophistication of AI models alone, but on the ability to scale them in a secure and responsible manner. He highlighted that financial institutions navigating sovereignty risks and unsanctioned AI use will need to shift toward flexible, containerised platforms that unify workloads across hybrid environments. According to Tuseth, the organisations that will come out ahead are those that align their infrastructure with regional compliance and data sovereignty requirements, not simply those with the largest compute budgets. Devan Parinpanayagam, Country Manager for Nutanix Malaysia, is available for further comment on the local implications of the report’s findings.
The full Financial Sector Enterprise Cloud Index report is available on the Nutanix website.