The cloud computing landscape continues to make big leaps.

Powered by the widespread adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, technology innovation, and the growing demand for scalable, flexible infrastructure — the world of cloud computing is at the dawn of a new era.

An era where cloud services are not dictated by a conglomerate of inflexible tech giants but are democratized and designed to handle the increasing demands of today.

It is therefore pivotal to try to forecast where the future of cloud is headed, so businesses and users alike can stay ahead of the curve and make educated decisions in advance.

In this short article, we’ll make a keen hypothesis of what the future of cloud computing looks like — based on data, market analysis, current trends, and expert predictions.

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A Quick Overview of Cloud Computing in 2024

Cloud computing services in 2024 can be divided based on service model types. The three key types that make up the ecosystem are:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) — Which provides compute, network, and storage space to customers on a pay-as-you-need basis. Example: Microsoft Azure VM

Platform as a Service (PaaS) — Which offers a complete environment in the cloud that allows users to deploy tools to build and test applications. Example: Google App Engine.

And Software as a Service (SaaS) — Which delivers software applications online on a subscription basis. Google Workspace is an example of this. SaaS dominates the public cloud services market as of 2024.

Now currently, the cloud computing landscape resembles a classic oligopoly: a select group of tech giants own a lion’s share of the global market. AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud collectively hold a 66 percent share of the worldwide cloud market — while the remaining companies fight for scraps of the pie.

These key three companies battle it out for dominion over the market. 

For instance, just in the third quarter of 2023, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google invested a combined $32bn in computing infrastructure — which is almost 50% more than the third quarter of 2020. Overall, worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure services surpassed $68 billion last year. That is a 18% growth rate from the previous year alone.

And this upward trend in demand doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. As of June 2024, the global cloud computing market size is valued at over $600 billion, with experts predicting it will surpass $1.6 trillion by 2030.

With this surge in demand, companies are starting to adopt new hybrid and multi-cloud strategies to optimize their workloads and avoid vendor lock-in.

Within these strategies is the implementation of the three key technologies that are buzzing in cloud computing right now: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and edge computing.

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Emerging Trends in Cloud Computing

First, we have the evolution of AI, which is playing a pivotal role in enhancing cloud computing by helping automate tasks, optimizing resource allocation, improving system efficiency, and enhancing security by detecting threats in real time. It allows companies to deploy predictive analytics to personalize user experiences as well.

Then we have IoT technology, which facilitates the connection of billions of devices worldwide to the Internet — while generating a slew of data in the process. IoT devices can send data to the cloud for storage, processing, and analysis in real-time, which then allows businesses to gain invaluable insights on the spot.

And finally, there is edge computing, which is shaping cloud computing by helping to reduce latency — the time it takes to transfer data — which facilitates the performance of tasks that require immediate responses. Edge computing processes data in close geographic proximity rather than sending it to distant data centers, and that improves efficiency and reduces bandwidth usage.

Big Tech have started to leverage these technologies for their own operations. And we can expect more companies to catch up to the same trend shortly. While new technology can be slow to catch on, its advantages will eventually become apparent, leading to wider adoption.

However, a by far much more fundamental but less visible change in the cloud industry, is the concept of an Open Cloud — and a shift towards more decentralized, and cost-effective solutions.

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The Shift Towards Open Cloud Solutions

A significant challenge in the cloud computing landscape right now is the overreliance on a single cloud provider that holds complete control of the infrastructure. As covered above, three companies alone own more than half of the market share for the cloud computing landscape.

Users have begun to become weary of depending exclusively on a single, centralized party to handle all of their data. And with the enormous market share and financial commitment these giants have placed into developing their infrastructure, comes a price tag that’s difficult to endure for many businesses. 

It’s for these reasons that the cloud computing landscape has started to venture into a new direction.

What is an Open Cloud — And How Is It Shaping The Computing Landscape for 2024 (and beyond)?

An Open Cloud is a cloud computing environment that prioritizes interoperability, transparency, and open standards, allowing users to avoid vendor lock-in and move data and applications freely across different cloud platforms.

In other words, the whole point of an open cloud is to create a new environment that fosters openness and accessibility. 

It’s an ecosystem that, unlike the current, centralized solutions available today, allows you to choose from a variety of different providers and hold autonomy over your data.

In an open cloud, collaboration and flexibility are built into the ecosystem. Service providers can pick from a wide array of  hardware providers willing to place their hardware at your disposal — based entirely on how much capacity is needed.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. At its core, an open cloud has the potential to:

• Lower Costs — Decentralized cloud solutions reduce costs by lowering the capex needs by leveraging hardware provided from the community. This approach significantly improves efficiency, therefore lowering the price point for the customer.

• Enhance Performance — Typically with centralized providers, data may be bottlenecked by the capacity of a single server or cluster, with an open cloud, data can simply be located at the edge and ready to go whenever you need it.

• Integrate Easily — Services running on an open cloud can integrate seamlessly with other software - unified by a platform layer. Any service provider can build on the platform and access hardware as needed.

• Offer Transparent Pricing  — In an open cloud, the pricing model is enforced by the protocol and fully transparent to all parties within the value chain, preventing exploitation or misuse of resources.

The impact this technology can have on the cloud computing landscape — and the world at large — is profound. 

Imagine a world where businesses or cloud service providers can hop on a network that allows them to flip through the marketplace, and find hardware for their specific needs — be it additional compute or storage capacity. Since resources are utilized more appropriately, businesses can save up on costs and allocate capital more productively. 

Businesses can rest assured since unlike current legacy systems, infrastructure is not built under a single point of failure and there’s no option of “deplatforming” an ecosystem participant by a centralized entity. 

In an open cloud, businesses and ecosystem participants are compensated for collaborating and contributing to the network’s success. One of the Open Cloud’s core ideas is to reward participants for deploying infrastructure and becoming essential builders of the network — typically through token incentives.

Simply put, in an open cloud, you are able to partially own the network— on top of full autonomy over how your data is managed.

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Case in Point: The Impossible Cloud Network

The Impossible Cloud Network (ICN for short) is a Web3 initiative that introduces a decentralized approach to cloud infrastructure.

It is enabled by blockchain technology, offering participants a marketplace for storage, computing, and other cloud services.

ICN will connect service providers — entities that design & deliver innovative cloud-based products for their customers — with hardware providers, who will offer their high-performance hardware capacity to the network.

A DePIN company at heart, ICN aims to unify global cloud infrastructure under a decentralized framework, eliminating vendor lock-in for good, and providing decentralized cloud storage solutions that are secure, efficient, and accessible.

This will be possible through ICN’s Protocol, which facilitates cloud infrastructure and hardware orchestration and incentivizes hardware providers to allocate high-performance hardware for any cloud use case.

It is a great example of what an Open Cloud will look like in the modern world. Impossible Cloud GmbH as the initial service provider of the platform underlines this with businesses already leveraging the platform’s capabilities.

So what is ahead for cloud computing in the coming years?

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Future Predictions & Recommendations

According to Gartner, which is a prominent research and advisory firm in the tech space, by next year over 85% of enterprises will adopt a cloud-first approach, and they will require the adoption of cloud-native architectures and technologies to implement their digital objectives properly. Furthermore, over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms by the same time frame.

Ultimately, this means that nearly every company will rely heavily on the cloud to run their operations and meet their goals in the near future. This might already be the case for a large chunk of businesses out there. And this fact makes it critical for companies to start investing in efficient cloud providers. 

Data proliferation is at an all-time high. Prioritizing the efficiency of your cloud solutions can be the difference between staying on top of the competition or getting left behind in the digital world.

An open cloud plays a huge role in this equation, as it promises to reshape the landscape of cloud services, making it more accessible, secure, and efficient for businesses everywhere. It is therefore in the best interest of every business owner out there to explore what the open cloud can offer for their enterprise.

If you’re interested in learning more about ICN and how it can help you unlock more value for your business, be sure to stay in the loop for future articles in the blog! 

Feel free to join our Discord community (https://discord.gg/icnetwork) to get all the latest news on ICN.

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