Repatriation, AI, and the Case for a Smarter Hybrid Cloud Strategy

The cloud revolution isn’t slowing down—it’s evolving. In fact, it’s undergoing what Broadcom calls a “cloud reset.” According to its recent Private Cloud Outlook 2025 report, IT leaders are rethinking their reliance on public cloud infrastructure, with 69% considering moving workloads back to private environments and 53% naming private cloud their top deployment priority for the next three years. 

Let’s take a look at the drivers at play here. But keep in mind, this isn’t about giving up on the cloud. It’s about getting smarter with how we use it.  

AI, compliance, and control: why private cloud is making a comeback 

One of the biggest forces reshaping infrastructure strategy is the rise of AI workloads. From training large language models (LLMs) to running inferencing jobs, AI demands immense compute power and access to vast datasets often containing proprietary, sensitive or regulated information. 

According to the Broadcom’s study: 

• 55% of IT leaders preferred private cloud for AI training, tuning, and inference. 

• 49% of organizations cited data privacy and security concerns as their top challenge when adopting GenAI. 

• 92% said they trust private cloud more than public could for compliance. 

In hyperscale public clouds, data often flows between proprietary services and regions by default, creating blind spots in compliance and introducing unpredictable costs. Meanwhile, there have been multiple high-profile incidents where hyperscaler customers were unable to access critical data and services for hours. Imagine not just losing access to storage, but to your entire stack, applications, backups, and data, potentially grinding operations to a halt.  

But these concerns aren’t just about security—they're about control. Many enterprises are discovering that hyperscale public cloud providers, while powerful, make it difficult to separate storage from compute, or to ensure data locality and operational transparency. This tightly integrated, “walled garden” model where compute, storage, and network services are bundled under a single cloud vendor can limit flexibility, especially for AI use cases where workload portability, data governance, and cost control are paramount. 

That’s why many IT leaders are rethinking their architecture. By repatriating compute-intensive AI workloads to private or controlled environments and decoupling them from storage layers, organizations gain greater clarity over where and how their data is handled—a critical step in meeting today’s compliance, performance, and financial visibility standards. 

Hyperscale cost surprises: when cloud bills become barriers 

Beyond security and performance, cost transparency is another major concern. While public cloud offers scale and agility, hyperscalers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud often introduce hidden complexity through layered pricing models. 

According to Broadcom’s 2025 Private Cloud Outlook, 94% of organizations reported waste in their public cloud spend, with nearly half estimating that more than 25% of their budget is lost to inefficiencies. Wasabi’s own 2025 Cloud Storage Index echoes this reality: The independent study of more than 1,500 IT decision-makers found that 62% of IT leaders exceeded their cloud storage budgets in the past year, and nearly half (49%) of total cloud object storage bills were spent on fees rather than storage capacity itself. 

These fees aren’t always visible upfront. Many appear as line items tied to common operations, such as reading, writing, or moving data. What makes them especially problematic is that they scale with usage in ways that are difficult to model or forecast. Some of the most common culprits include: 

• Egress fees – Charges for moving data out of a provider’s environment (e.g., to another cloud, a private data center, or even your own users). 

• API request fees – Costs associated with standard storage operations like PUT, GET, LIST, or HEAD requests. 

• Retrieval and access fees – Additional charges tied to accessing data stored in colder, archival tiers. 

• Lifecycle and metadata fees – Charges for applying or managing storage policies, such as object tagging, lock configurations, or version control. 

When organizations attempt to optimize price/performance by using “cold” storage tiers, they often find that retrieving or working with that data—for compliance audits, AI training, verifying backups, or even disaster recovery —can lead to unexpected cost spikes that undermine the original savings. This lack of transparency and control can erode the business case for cloud storage at scale. 

Repatriation doesn’t mean retreat. It means refinement. 

Security, compliance, cost, and control are the primary reasons organizations turn to private cloud. But moving entirely to private cloud infrastructure is rarely a simple path. It requires significant investment, internal expertise, and brings with it additional operational complexity. 

Wasabi is the ideal bridge. We deliver the same level of protection and compliance that enterprises expect from private environments, while preserving the flexibility, simplicity, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud: 

1. Enterprise-grade security and compliance 

Wasabi meets or exceeds the stringent standards that drive private cloud adoption. Our immutable storage protects data from ransomware, tampering, and accidental deletion—an essential safeguard not just for backup and recovery, but also for ensuring the integrity of sensitive workloads like AI model training and inference. 

We support compliance with key regulatory frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, FERPA, CJIS, and others) without adding complexity or overhead. And innovations like Multi-User Authentication enhance account security by requiring multiple authorized individuals to approve critical actions—such as deleting storage buckets or entire accounts— adding a layer of protection against accidental or malicious activity. With Wasabi, you get uncompromising security built into every layer of your hybrid architecture. 

2. Predictable, transparent pricing 

Wasabi offers simple, flat-rate pricing with no fees for egress, API requests, or access —just straightforward, budget-friendly storage. Our model is typically 80% less expensive than the hyperscalers, making it easy for IT teams to scale without financial surprises or complex forecasting. 

3. Performance without complexity 

Where private cloud deployments can introduce storage silos and operational friction, Wasabi simplifies storage management. There’s no need for large infrastructure buildouts or extensive retraining. S3-compatible Wasabi integrates seamlessly into your existing cloud mix, reducing friction and accelerating your journey toward IT modernization. 

A smart hybrid strategy starts with Wasabi 

The takeaway isn’t that public cloud is broken, or private cloud is flawless. It’s that the smartest infrastructure strategy blends both: the control and compliance of private environments with the agility and scale of cloud services. 

Wasabi is purpose-built for this new era. Our storage model eliminates the tradeoffs between security, simplicity, and cost—enabling organizations to modernize their IT strategy without blowing up their budget or adding risk. 

Whether you're backing up sensitive data, building AI pipelines, or navigating evolving data sovereignty regulations, Wasabi provides a secure, compliant, and affordable foundation. It’s cloud object storage designed for the way enterprises work in 2025, not the way hyperscalers priced it a decade ago.