IDC White Paper: Self-Service Private Cloud as the Engine for In-House AI and Application Innovation

The AI Platform Imperative: Securing Executive Buy-In for Your Self-Service Private Cloud

Every enterprise is racing to ship AI capabilities. In fact, 100% of organizations surveyed by IDC are currently building or planning generative AI and/or agentic AI applications¹.

But for platform engineers and cloud architects, a critical operational bottleneck stands in the way: ticket-driven infrastructure provisioning. Developers demand instant access to runtime environments, databases, and AI frameworks, but manual approval queues stretch the software development life cycle (SDLC) from days into weeks.

To address this friction, platform teams must build an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) powered by a self-service private cloud. The challenge is no longer just technological, it’s financial. Securing the budget for it requires a rigorous economic justification.

A new Broadcom-sponsored IDC white paper, Self-Service Private Cloud as the Engine for In-House AI and Application Innovation, arms you with the objective data needed to help win executive buy-in.

Here’s a glimpse into why engineering teams are rethinking their cloud strategies, and how this research can help you build your business case.

The Repatriation Reality: Why AI is Moving On-Premises

For years, public cloud was the default model for agility. But as AI initiatives move from pilot to production, data gravity, governance, and unit economics are pulling high-throughput workloads back to the enterprise datacenter.

The white paper uncovers the following insights:

• On average, 49.9% of organizations’ AI workloads already run on-premises or in a private cloud².
• Nearly 30% of organizations have repatriated more than a quarter of their total workloads from public cloud to on-premises infrastructure over the past 12 months³.
• The top drivers for this repatriation are the integration of AI capabilities that require on-premises execution (39.6%), followed by control over data security and privacy (30.3%), and IT governance requirements (26.1%)⁴.

Rather than reflexively expanding their public cloud footprints, organizations are recognizing that private clouds offer the necessary environment to help satisfy security and data privacy obligations while retaining control over the proprietary data feeding their models.

Shifting the Conversation: From “Tools” to “Business Outcomes”

Executives don’t fund “tools,” they fund business outcomes. To secure budget for an IDP, platform engineers must shift the conversation away from infrastructure specifications.

The IDC research outlines how to build a compelling economic case by tracking the metrics that matter most to the board:

• Business Metrics: Tie platform performance to time-to-market, SDLC cost reduction, and application revenue.
• Technology Metrics: Highlight security posture, DORA metrics, and reduced vulnerabilities.
• People Metrics: Measure platform adoption rates and time-to-first-commit to prove developers are actively leveraging the IDP.

VCF Automation: Eliminating the Provisioning Bottleneck

The IDC white paper demonstrates how VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Automation can deliver a strong ROI by serving as the self-service engine for this modern cloud operating model.

By shifting from manual IT queues to a curated service catalog with embedded governance, VCF Automation allows cloud admins to delegate resources to developers with embedded governance. Platform teams can offer on-demand access to VMs, Kubernetes clusters, and Private AI services directly through a unified interface. The operational friction is reduced. For example, one enterprise customer was able to reduce infrastructure provisioning times from 3–4 days down to approximately 30 minutes.

Unlock Your AI Velocity Today

It’s time to stop letting manual infrastructure queues dictate your software delivery speed. Equip yourself with the data to make the business case that a VCF-powered, self-service private cloud is a secure, cost-effective foundation for your organization’s AI future.

Ready to build your business case?

Download and read the free IDC white paper to get the insights you need to empower your platform engineering teams.

Sources: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Broadcom, Self-Service Private Cloud as the Engine for In-House AI and Application Innovation, #US54784226, July 2026