It's no doubt that much of Cloud technology's growth has to be attributed to the pandemic-led shift to remote working. The cloud industry has no choice but to find new ways of keeping up with a significantly growing demand whilst ensuring its existing methodologies are at the forefront. To put the growth into perspective, research from Gartner estimated public spending on cloud services in 2021 will be up 23% from the previous year, with a total of $332 billion.

In 2022, we will undoubtedly see a continuation of rapid adoption and growth. Here are our five predictions:

1) Sustainability

With the COP26 in Glasgow making headlines, and industries worldwide pledging their net-zero aims, it's only ethical for technology and its components to follow suit, but how is this possible in the cloud industry?

It's already making moves as Amazon Web Services (AWS) have pledged toward a 100% renewable energy operation by 2025, announcing the construction of 23 new wind and solar projects across the globe this year. 

We predict there will be a significant focus on reducing the energy usage associated with the computers that power the cloud. Firstly, electronic waste is an area of growing concern. As ageing hardware is being discarded in the tens of millions of tons every year, the need for robust computer hardware recycling grows daily. More digital storage also means that the 24/7, always powered and ready infrastructure needs to be addressed. Take Amazon, for example, the world's biggest cloud company is focusing on reducing the "downstream" energy usage created by its products, such as the Echo and Fire TV, once they are in the customer's home. 

2) AI in Cloud Computing

 According to Gartner's Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2021, organisations need a strong AI engineering strategy to ensure their projects don't fail. 

Artificial Intelligence platforms require a lot of power and bandwidth for processing data, and cloud data centres make this available to everyone. Most of the AI we see lives today in the cloud, and the tech that drives traffic from data centres to our devices is built from machine learning. The relationship between AI and cloud computing results in an extensive network capable of holding massive volumes of data while continuously learning and improving, and it's only going to become stronger. Cloud computing will play a fundamental role in delivering machine learning services to users and building the infrastructure to deliver them. The benefits of this strengthening relationship include lower costs, deeper insights and improved data management.

3) The rise of Cloud Gaming

Mordor Intelligence projects the cloud gaming market to grow to $2.7 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.3% from 2021 to 2026. As cloud technology improves and 5G comes online, the attraction to cloud gaming is very similar to that of on-demand movie streaming services like Netflix. Users don't need storage space for entertainment libraries and don't require specialised hardware, which means lower overall costs. Cloud gaming also eliminates the piracy problem and helps developers generate more revenue by allowing gamers to play more than one game at a time.

4)  Internet of Things

An IoT platform is a cloud-empowering platform that works with standard gadgets to empower cloud-based applications and administrations. Lightbulbs can integrate with a phone to automatically brighten or dim; smartwatches can engage with news services to pull up headlines relating to your interests on your wrist. Electric cars are downloading and installing software updates. IoT devices have exploded in growth, exceeding 50 billion devices as of 2020, and it's no secret that growth in IoT will push a high demand on cloud computing in the coming years.

5) A Hybrid Cloud

The global hybrid cloud market is expected to be worth $145 billion in 2026, up more than 180% from $51 billion in 2020. It's the sweet spot in-between a public and private cloud, and Tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon are now investing intensely in this innovation as a product. A hybrid cloud is especially attractive for businesses that collect sensitive data or operate in industries where data privacy is essential. A hybrid approach is attractive because it offers the necessary level of control without holding businesses back from innovation and scale as they roll out new services for their customers.