The digital world has evolved in ways we could never have predicted twenty years ago.
What’s possible - and what will be possible - via the internet has dramatically changed because of the cloud. Thanks to its seemingly endless capabilities, we’ve been able to make strides in innovations such as the Internet of Things, as well as making our everyday lives, from work to play, heaps easier.
From the world’s biggest corporations to your closest friends (and you, even), everybody’s using the cloud. It’s pretty much the reason why Netflix exists. It’s why you can transfer big files via Dropbox, or work on the same Google Sheet with your coworkers on different devices. It’s the reason why you can have freakily in-depth but awesome conversations with Siri, and why you can access your work files on pretty much any tech from anywhere, so long as you have an internet connection.
It’s also to account for the very existence of Shadow - and the entire cloud gaming industry, for that matter. Because of the cloud, we can make the most advanced PC gaming tech available to everybody in the world, remotely, via the web. No matter where you live, you can stream your entire library of games - through whatever tech you have, be it a mobile, laptop, desktop or other - on a crazy-powerful Windows 10 computer. How’s that for a super silver lining?
Indeed, the cloud has changed the very fabric of the digital world and what it means to connect, and it’s impossible to imagine, now, that we’ll ever go back. Businesses, too, have benefitted hugely from the cloud model, with the average employee actively using 36 cloud services at work. It’s no surprise, as the cloud can handle everything from fluctuating bandwidth demands to cutting overheads and keeping your data safe from potential in-office disasters (like earthquakes or spilling coffee over expensive hardware - ouch).
And the most exciting part? It’s only just getting started.
In both the near and distant(ish) future, there are big changes ahead for cloud computing… and even bigger numbers. Google predicts that over 90% of enterprises will have a multi-cloud environment by 2024 - and just in time, too, as the world’s data is set to swell to a size of 175ZB (or 175 trillion GB) by 2025.
There’s more. In 2020, cloud services are set to skyrocket, with initiatives such as Software-as-a-Service (Saas) growing by 18% and Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) by 56%, while the market revenue of Global Cloud IT is predicted to increase to 390 billion dollars… not to mention that the cloud gaming industry, specifically, is estimated to thrive at a compound annual growth rate of around 27.2% between 2018 and 2026. Cha-ching.
And beyond these staggering stats? We don’t see the cloud slowing down - namely because new innovations, such as blockchain, quantum computing, machine learning and AI services are growing at a rapid rate, and all rely heavily on the cloud to function and thrive. Yep… if there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that the cloud is here to stay.
For both digital and physical reasons. When corporations, in particular, use cloud computers instead of running their own data farms, they dramatically reduce their carbon footprint (and save tons of cash on paying for energy, too). A study conducted by WSP showed that Microsoft’s cloud offering could help businesses cut their carbon emissions by 98%, and were up to 93% more energy efficient than on-site data centres - a whopping reduction with potentially incredible benefits for the planet, if cloud computers are adopted by companies globally.
Beyond this, by improving and working on the cloud computing infrastructure, we’re opening the door to new technologies and making them more diverse and exciting than ever before. It’s helping the aforementioned Internet of Things more accessible, for instance (as it generates a huge amount of data, and the cloud stores and transports that data to where it needs to be for IoT devices to work). AI technology, for another example, works synergistically with the cloud to offer personalised experiences, as the information gathered across the cloud’s many servers can be used by AIs to learn things such as how to converse with people in a “human” way.
If you’re obsessed with digital (aren’t we all?), it’s about time you deep dive into the amazing experiences that the cloud has to offer. The things that you’re interested in - from improving the streamlined running of your business to social networking, or developing your own technology to gaming - are sure to be improved by the cloud in some way, whether by through its structure or an existing cloud-based service. Get involved and get excited, because cloud computing is the future… and the future looks bright.