Government IT investments center on cybersecurity, modernization, AI, survey finds

A new survey of public sector organizations shows the industry is making significant investments in strengthening its IT infrastructure, including ransomware prevention, digital modernization, and AI strategy, to keep pace with innovation and improve operational efficiency.

The cloud computing company Nutanix released its Public Sector Enterprise Index on Tuesday, a report summarizing responses from a survey that asked public sector officials about their challenges, how they’re running business-essential applications and how their IT operations might change in the future.

“Public sector organizations are eager to modernize their IT infrastructure and lay the foundation to adopt new technologies to deliver better services and experiences for constituents,” Greg O’Connell, a representative for Nutanix, said about the survey’s findings.

The survey found that ransomware protection is a top priority for IT decision-makers. Ninety-two percent of the public sector chief information officers and chief technology officers surveyed said security and compliance are the primary drivers of application relocation within their digital landscapes.

Government facilities were the third-largest critical infrastructure sector targeted by ransomware attacks in 2023, according to a March cybercrime report by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

As government organizations increase their use of AI, the survey found, issues of data privacy and keeping up on best practices continue to plague the public sector. Though support for AI ranked low on purchasing criteria for public sector infrastructure, 80% of public sector respondents said they plan to increase investments in AI by 2025.

Dozens of states — including Rhode Island, which in February formed an AI task force, a new chief data officer role and an AI “center of excellence” — have in recent months created AI task forces to explore ways the technology can improve state government efficiency, enhance digital services and responsibly support innovation.

The survey also revealed that nearly 85% of IT organizations in the public sector use “cloud-smart” services, which give agencies the flexibility to control costs and avoid using only one vendor for data storage.