In the AI era, the survival of Chemicals & Life Sciences businesses depends on a cloud foundation

The Chemicals and Life Sciences industries pioneer in the service of humanity. Pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible, delivering life-enhancing innovation – it’s all part of their DNA. But while these industries use cutting-edge tech to create breakthrough products, many companies still hesitate to commit their business systems to the cloud.

This has to change. Without cloud technology, Chemicals and Life Sciences businesses forfeit multiple strategic advantages – especially the game-changing power of enterprise AI. Inaction will have an existential impact on every business. Margin and market share will be lost to more agile, more efficient, and lower-cost base AI-empowered competitors.

For all businesses in these sectors – especially European operations with high production and labor costs – moving to the cloud is now a matter of survival.

What’s holding Chemicals & Life Sciences back from the cloud?

Today, as much as 94%¹ of enterprises are using some form of cloud service. But BearingPoint has found the Chemicals and Life Sciences consistently slower to fully embrace the technology.

Cloud adoption is frequently piecemeal, with individual systems moved in isolation rather than as part of a coherent end-to-end strategy. Even these mini-migrations are often vendor-led, with software suppliers either making the switch mandatory or commercially irresistible.

Of course sometimes, cloud hesitancy isn’t about doubting the technology; it's about budget prioritization that favors R&D and specialized IT systems over digitizing core business processes.

The case for moving to the cloud

Private or hybrid cloud infrastructure addresses the regulatory and security concerns in highly regulated industries like Chemicals and Life Sciences.

Dedicated private clouds provide the tightest data control and strongest regulatory compliance enablers, including certifications, controls, and dedicated tooling. Hybrid approaches balance these benefits with public cloud capacity and innovation, keeping sensitive workloads isolated while gaining flexibility and scalability.

Whether private or hybrid, leading cloud providers make a convincing argument that their platforms deliver superior security to on-premise options through specialized teams, stress-tested infrastructure, continuous monitoring, and default encryption that individual organizations struggle to match.

Software innovation itself is increasingly oriented around cloud technologies, with a large and growing share of new development and investment focused on SaaS and cloud-native apps and platforms. Cloud users typically benefit from accessing the most advanced versions available. Users, partners, and customers can securely access systems from anywhere, enabling global collaboration. Simultaneously it enhances software performance by deploying applications closer to end users with reduced latency.

Cloud infrastructure also enhances collaboration and access. Users, partners, and customers can securely access systems from anywhere, enabling global collaboration, while applications deployed closer to end users deliver improved performance with reduced latency.

Then, of course, there’s the big one: the future of AI has a cloud foundation. Let’s take a look.

Companies that resist cloud migration will find themselves unable to leverage and scale AI capabilities, effectively cutting themselves off from the future of competitive advantage. 2025 BearingPoint research² across +1,000 global C-suite executives illustrates this exact phenomenon in Chemicals and Life Sciences.

Businesses have trialled AI across R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, commercial, and QC operations. But without the necessary cloud foundation, they’ve struggled to translate their pilot AI programs to full operational deployment. In fact, only 4% of companies in these sectors have fully scaled AI projects. The overwhelming majority are stuck at partial or limited scale. The primary culprit? Poor data quality and availability. In a separate BearingPoint study, almost two-thirds (63%³) of Chemical company respondents, and 65% from Life Sciences, cited this as the number one blocker to successful AI transformation.

AI requires comprehensive, consolidated, and accurate data to power the predictive models and insights that drive transformative business value. Cloud infrastructure provides that foundation. If businesses are going to invest in the AI rocketship, they need to be able to fuel it.

No cloud, no AI. No AI, no resilient future. 

Chemicals and Life Sciences businesses need to transform the way they work to survive (let alone thrive) in hugely competitive global markets. It’s particularly important for European enterprises to reassess their operational paradigm. They need to offset higher energy, labor, and production costs that put them at a major disadvantage against rivals from other regions.

Accessing these transformational AI benefits requires robust cloud infrastructure. Without it, most AI projects remain stuck in the pilot phase, burning capital without delivering value.

The equation is straightforward: businesses need AI to stay competitive, AI needs cloud-based data ecosystems to scale. Therefore cloud infrastructure isn’t optional – it’s a matter of survival.

Now’s the time to take the first step towards an AI-empowered future, and that means developing a coherent end-to-end cloud transformation strategy for all key systems and processes. Maintaining the technological status quo is no longer a viable option.

References

1. Cloud Adoption Statistics 2026: Growth, Migration Drivers, ROI, SQ Magazine
2. BearingPoint research from Chemicals and life sciences sectors in Europe, USA and China, conducted through online interviews in august 2025.
3. BearingPoint research across 150 C-suite executives Chemicals and life sciences, across Europe, USA and China, conducted through online interviews in august 2025.