Emerging Cloud Technology — What’s the story for 2023?

2022 turned out to be a stellar year for cloud technology. Global spend on cloud infrastructure services in the second quarter of 2022 reached $63.3 billion — up 33% on the previous year, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft accounting for the biggest amount of spend at 31% and 24%, respectively.

But is this growth sustainable, and which emerging cloud technology trends should we be keeping an eye on going forward? From Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to edge and serverless computing, a host of new technologies are predicted to shape the future of cloud computing in 2023.

Here’s a look at 5 emerging cloud technologies sure to have an impact this year.

1. An uptake in AI and ML adoption

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) provide valuable ways to improve analytics, automate processes, and help companies build predictive models. Up until recently, however, uptake of AI and ML has been limited, with companies lacking the necessary bandwidth and processing capacity to enable these technologies at scale.

This is where cloud data centres come in. They offer businesses the enhanced computing power and bandwidth they require to generate training data for ML platforms. In future, integrating AI and ML into cloud platforms will become a necessity, if companies are to take advantage of their huge potential.

2. Edge computing

While still considered to be in its early stages, the edge computing market is predicted to grow 40% from 2022 to 2030. Edge computing is an evolution of cloud computing whereby data is processed closer to where it’s generated without the need for a traditional data centre.

It can process large volumes of data at greater speeds, and uncover new insights at an incredible rate, allowing businesses to predict, manage and prepare for future demands.

Examples of edge include driverless cars, autonomous robots, smart equipment data, and retail automation. There are many examples of edge computing we already use on a daily basis, too, for example smart speakers and watches, which compute locally, and talk to the cloud.

3. Virtual cloud desktops

Cloud desktops are hosted on cloud-based resources, rather than on-premises data centers. Also known as Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), virtual cloud desktops can be accessed from anywhere, and on any device, so long as there’s an internet connection available.

VMware Horizon Cloud and Microsoft Remote Desktop (MRD) are examples of virtual cloud desktop providers. The benefits of virtual desktops are that all data is saved on a server on the cloud, not on the endpoint device, dramatically reducing the threat that comes with lost or stolen devices.

The market for cloud desktop virtualisation is projected to grow to over 11 billion US Dollars by 2026.

4. Serverless computing

Despite the name, servers are still required in serverless computing. In this model, however, cloud service vendors provide backend services on a per-use basis, rather than on a fixed amount of bandwidth or number of servers.

Users can write and deploy code without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure and can take advantage of a service that can auto-scale.

Serverless computing is set to grow by 22% in the next few years so this is definitely a market to watch.

5. Cloud disaster recovery

Traditionally, disaster recovery is time-consuming and expensive, but CDR offers companies a more cost-effective solution.

Cloud disaster recovery (CDR) can rapidly restore an organisation’s critical systems in the case of a disaster and enable remote access to systems in a secure virtual environment. It merges backup processes and services to protect data, programs, and configurations.

Disaster recovery as a Service (DaaS) is predicted to grow from $8.8 billion dollars to $24.5 billion by 2027.

The cloud has been a game-changer for businesses and, moving forward, we can expect to see cloud technology expand and provide even better solutions to business problems.

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