"99% of companies hold 'dark data' that they fail to utilize properly."
Jeon In-ho, CEO of EverPure Korea Ji (President), held the "Pure Accelerate Seoul 2026" press conference on the 17th at Signiel Seoul in Songpa-gu, Seoul, and revealed the results of a joint survey with Omdia titled "Corporate Data Readiness." He stated, "In the AI era, data management is extremely important," adding that dark data refers to information that has been collected and stored but not effectively utilized.
Data platform company EverPure achieved 161% growth in Korea during the second quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, driven by expanded investments in AI infrastructure. This growth rate exceeds the market's overall expansion by 25 percentage points, as major vendors in the domestic all-flash external OEM storage market saw a 136% revenue increase during the same period (IDC survey). Jeon Ji (President) said, "Price increases and AI adoption are the two key factors driving market growth," noting that "AI storage requires high speed and large capacity."
The global customer base is also expanding. Jeon Ji (President) announced that, following Meta, another of the world's top five hyperscalers has decided to adopt EverPure's storage technology. However, due to mutual agreement between the companies, the name of the enterprise was not disclosed.
While demand for storage is growing rapidly, corporate readiness to leverage data for AI remains insufficient. According to Omdia's survey, 99% of organizations possess "dark data" that has been collected and stored but not properly utilized. In more than half (51–75%) of the surveyed organizations, dark data accounted for over one-third (37%) of total corporate data. Additionally, 76% recognized this as a significant business risk level, where they lack control over data retention or deletion decisions.
Data also posed obstacles during the process of applying AI to actual operations. 97% of companies reported difficulties in transitioning AI from pilot projects to full-scale operations, and 68% identified data management as their biggest challenge. Furthermore, 58% of companies admitted they have not even secured basic visibility into their overall data environment.
Matthew Ustvin, CTO of EverPure Asia-Pacific & Japan (APJ), stated, "Dark data is information that does not appear on a CIO's radar, meaning organizations may not even be aware of its existence." He added, "This not only increases the risk of regulatory violations and fines but also causes companies to miss opportunities to leverage critical data."
In particular, leveraging data accumulated in legacy systems has been identified as a key challenge for long-established Korean companies. CTO Ustvin noted, "Korea has companies that are 50 or even 75 years old, and they possess corresponding legacy systems," explaining that "important information stored in mainframes and similar systems has historically been difficult to utilize for AI training."
EverPure plans to address this demand by deploying its "EverPure Data Intelligence" solution, which identifies, categorizes, and enables the utilization of corporate data for AI applications.
in TECH
