The Forklift vs. The Data Center Refresh: Why AI Changes the Infrastructure ROI Equation

IT leaders walk into budget meetings armed with rock-solid numbers: a new server can replace an entire rack. Power consumption drops 30%. The refresh pays for itself in under two years.

You’ve got your numbers, but then the CFO—under constant pressure to accelerate ROI—delivers the familiar challenge:

“Yeah, but the warehouse needs new forklifts.”

Forklifts are an easy sell. Everyone understands their impact. They move pallets. Cut labor costs. Improve safety. The ROI is immediate and tangible. In fact, CFOs are increasingly under pressure to show faster ROI on every technology investment¹.

A data center refresh? Not so much.

The efficiency is real—but the value isn’t always obvious to the business. And that’s the core tension in The Buyer Room: the gap between technical ROI and business intuition.

Infrastructure Still Loses the Budget Fight—Even When It Should Win

The Buyer Room is often full of technologists. They know the benefits. But they’re not making the final call. They’re making the case.

That’s a critical distinction.

A server refresh may be the smartest long-term decision in the building. But if it doesn’t connect to the business’s most visible goals, it’s not going to win the capital allocation argument—especially when competing with forklifts, which have a clear, immediate return.

And while you’re losing that budget battle, the costs of inaction are quietly piling up. That older infrastructure is costing more than you think. Cooling alone accounts for 30–40% of power consumption in legacy data centers², and 47% of operators are still running facilities over 11 years old³.

AI Is the Business’s Next Forklift

The business wants AI. Full stop.

The board is asking about it. Product wants to build with it. Marketing wants personalization. Supply chain wants predictive restocking. Finance wants anomaly detection.

But here’s the reality:

AI isn’t magic—it runs on infrastructure.

And infrastructure is the bottleneck. According to Synergy Research Group, AI-dedicated infrastructure will account for 70% of total data center hardware spending (excluding buildings) by 2030⁴. In fact, spending on AI-capable infrastructure was up 80% year over year in 2023.

Yet, only 1% of enterprises say they’re mature in scaling AI, even though 92% plan to increase AI investment⁵.

If the infrastructure can’t support the AI roadmap, the roadmap doesn’t happen. This isn’t optimization—it’s enablement. That shift is where IT leaders gain leverage in the budget conversation.

Reframing ROI Around AI Outcomes

Forget FLOPs per dollar. That’s not what gets funding.

What does?

Business outcomes.

Here’s how to make the argument:

• Power efficiency → Competitive agility

“Reducing power costs is nice. But more importantly, this refresh enables faster deployment of AI features our competitors are already rolling out—keeping us in the game.”

• Improved density → Strategic capital reallocation

“We can consolidate infrastructure, defer building expansion, and redirect that capital into revenue-generating teams or critical business initiatives.”

• Modern compute → Predictive demand and operational savings

“With the right infrastructure, we can run forecasting models that reduce spoilage, optimize delivery, and improve supply chain responsiveness.”

• GPU capacity → Increased conversions and loyalty

“We’re investing in AI-driven customer experiences. But if the infrastructure can’t deliver on latency and uptime, we lose conversions. Studies show a 100ms delay in page load can reduce conversion rates by up to 7%⁶.
For example, Walmart uses AI to power real-time product recommendations, which directly boost online sales. That level of personalization requires fast inference, powered by modern GPUs.”

Real-World Proof: AI Outcomes That Start with Infrastructure

These aren’t future-state hypotheticals. Enterprises are already seeing returns from AI—when the infrastructure can keep up.

• Mars, the global manufacturer, used AI from Celonis to optimize truckload consolidation—cutting shipping costs by 80%⁸. That’s supply chain ROI enabled by real-time data pipelines and scalable compute.

• In retail, Walmart’s AI recommendation engine increases basket size and drives margin. But only when inference can happen in milliseconds—not seconds.

This is why infrastructure matters: it doesn’t just keep the lights on. It fuels the very outcomes the business cares about most.

What Vendors Need to Do Differently

Here’s the uncomfortable truth for vendors:

The IT buyer is already sold.

They believe in the technology. Your job isn’t to prove performance—it’s to equip them to win the internal argument.

That means:

• Provide business-case templates tied directly to AI enablement

• Tell customer stories focused on revenue and capability—not just cost savings

• Frame infrastructure as a strategic accelerator, not a technical upgrade

• Highlight the true cost of inaction—what market share gets lost, what customer opportunities are missed, or what competitive advantages are forfeited if they delay

Because this is where the conversation usually breaks down: 94% of CIOs say they understand IT’s impact on the P&L—but only 62% of CFOs agree⁷.

Until vendors start leading with outcomes and enabling their champions, they’ll keep losing deals that should close.

Final Thought: AI Changes the Equation

For years, infrastructure has lost budget battles because it lacked the intuitive ROI of forklifts.

But now, AI is the new forklift.

It’s what the business wants. It’s where the biggest opportunities lie. And it’s what modern infrastructure quietly powers behind the scenes.

If IT leaders can tie infrastructure upgrades directly to AI outcomes—and if vendors support that narrative—data center refreshes won’t just win the technical argument.

They’ll win the budget.

Want to Dive Deeper?

This is exactly the kind of conversation we unpack in The Buyer Room—bridging the gap where vendor messaging meets real-world buyer context.

If you’re an IT leader navigating this budget tension—or a vendor looking to empower your champions—let’s talk about how to make your next big investment the one that wins.

📚 Sources

1. Deloitte CFO Signals, 2023: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/finance/articles/cfo-signals-survey.html

2. Uptime Institute, Global Data Center Survey, 2023: https://uptimeinstitute.com/research

3. Uptime Institute, Legacy Infrastructure Data: https://uptimeinstitute.com/2023-survey

4. Synergy Research Group, AI Infrastructure Outlook: https://www.srgresearch.com/articles/ai-to-dominate-future-data-center-capacity

5. IBM Global AI Adoption Index, 2023: https://www.ibm.com/reports/ai-adoption

6. Akamai/Amazon Performance Data: https://www.akamai.com/blog/performance/how-website-speed-affects-conversions

7. Gartner CIO–CFO Alignment Report, 2023: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-03-08-cio-cfo-relationship-barriers

8. Celonis + Mars Case Study: https://www.celonis.com/customer-stories/mars/