For more than a decade, cloud migration was viewed as a one-way journey. Applications, especially modern ones, were expected to either “move out” or be built-natively in the public cloud and stay there. But savvy organizations are evolving their cloud strategy to place each workload in the cloud environment that best meets its needs. More and more, that means private cloud.
Repatriation on the rise
According to the Private Cloud Outlook 2025, a Broadcom commissioned report, 69% of enterprises are considering repatriating workloads from public to private cloud, and more than one-third have already done so. Far from signaling a failed migration, this “homecoming” reflects a more mature strategy: placing each workload where it can be most secure, most cost-efficient, and most performant.
Building new workloads in private cloud is now the top three-year priority (53%). What’s changed? Organizations have grown weary of the public cloud’s three biggest shortcomings: cost, complexity, and compliance. Nearly half of IT leaders believe at least 25% of their public cloud spend is wasted. Add to this the operational complexity and ongoing security risks, and the allure of the public cloud as a default destination is fading.
According to Richard Mosely, CEO of Node4, this demonstrates “a shift from cloud‑first to cloud‑appropriate.” (Source: ITPro.com)
Security and AI are leading the shift
Security is the #1 driver of repatriation to private cloud. The report shows that 92% of IT leaders trust private cloud for security and compliance, compared with widespread concerns about safeguarding data in public cloud.
Generative AI (GenAI) is another catalyst. Enterprises initially looked to hyperscalers to power their AI initiatives, but many are now re-evaluating. Sensitive data, regulatory constraints, and high performance demands are better served in environments where organizations control infrastructure and governance. In fact, 55% of enterprises are already running GenAI in a private cloud - especially when it comes to use cases like inference, fine-tuning and RAG (Retrieval-augmented generation) .
“The excitement and related fears surrounding AI only reinforces the need for private clouds,” says Dave McCarthy, research vice president for cloud and edge services at IDC. “Enterprises need to ensure that private corporate data does not find itself inside a public AI model.” (source: CIO.com)
Private cloud performs across all applications
“Companies have found some workloads simply aren't suitable for public cloud, applications aren't performing as expected, and users are frustrated by application latency.” (Source: ITPro.com).
This mindset is also evident in the Private Cloud Outlook report’s findings. Once seen as a home only for traditional applications, private cloud now hosts both modern and legacy workloads for 84% of organizations. Customer-facing, latency-sensitive, and cloud-native applications are just as likely to be built natively in private cloud or “coming home.”
"If you’ve been around enterprise IT long enough, you’ve seen the pendulum swing from private cloud to public cloud and back again. That’s part of a larger trend that’s being dubbed the “Cloud Reset.” Enterprises are reconsidering workload placement, moving them from public back to private cloud, while targeting their new workloads to the private cloud. This shift represents a forward-leaning critical transformation that recognizes a modern private cloud as a strategic priority for today’s and tomorrow’s IT landscape,” said Krish Prasad SVP & GM, VMware Cloud Foundation Division, Broadcom.
The takeaway
Workloads are coming home to the private cloud. As they prioritize security, performance, and AI readiness, enterprises are re-centering their strategies around environments they can control and trust.
Broadcom is helping enterprises achieve their IT priorities and business goals with a unified private cloud platform for any workload, from traditional to AI. Learn how VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 combines the agility and flexibility traditionally associated with public cloud with the performance and resilience of private cloud.