Mike Vizard talks with Irwin Teodoro, senior vice president for advisory and transformation services at GDT, about why AI, modernization and hybrid cloud are driving infrastructure costs higher across compute, storage, networking, security and data protection. Teodoro explains why organizations can no longer refresh one piece of the stack in isolation and instead need workload-centric planning, right-sizing, FinOps tools and roadmaps that account for data location, performance, protection and skills. The conversation also examines the emerging AI tax, GPU sizing, cloud cost surprises, vendor interdependencies and why CIOs and CTOs need reference architectures that can flex as AI workloads evolve.