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Charting the Massive Scale of the Digital Cloud

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The Scale of the Digital Cloud

Charting the Massive Scale of the Digital Cloud

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Cloud computing continues to be on the rise, and for good reason. It’s transformed our digital experience in numerous ways, from how we store data to the way we share information online with others.

Growth in cloud services is showing no signs of slowing down, particularly in the data storage realm—by 2025, almost half of the world’s stored data will reside in public cloud environments. Yet, despite its increasing popularity among consumers and businesses alike, do people really understand what the cloud fully entails? Or better yet, what the cloud even is?

Today’s infographic from Raconteur provides an overview of the fast-changing cloud computing landscape, showcasing the industry’s growth and its evolution in scale. It also touches on what’s next for the cloud.

What is Cloud Computing?

Put simply, cloud computing is a network of remote servers that provides customers with a number of offerings, including data storage, processing power, and apps. It’s usually delivered on a pay-per-use basis.

Cloud computing can be broken down into three categories:

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): Virtual computing services that businesses can utilize over the internet. IaaS allows businesses to scale up resources when needed, and pay for what they use. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are both IaaS examples.
  • Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Like IaaS, PaaS utilizes remote infrastructure, but it includes an extra layer by offering tools that developers use to build apps. Examples of PaaS in action include the Google App Engine or OpenShift.
  • Software-as-a-Service (Saas): The delivery of apps through remote servers. This is the type of cloud computing most users are familiar with. Examples include Dropbox and Google Apps.

Cloud computing has its obstacles, such as security and privacy risks. Yet, the cloud continues to entice consumers by offering a new level of accessibility to their online experience.

This accessibility has also drastically changed the working world. The cloud allows users to access company servers from anywhere globally, and to share documents and information with colleagues quickly. Because of this, it’s become a key part of remote work.

IaaS: The Backbone of the Cloud

Cloud services are seeing significant growth, and the big tech companies are its backbone.

In fact, four major players combine to dominate almost 60% of the cloud’s infrastructure. Here’s a look at the cloud market breakdown in 2019, and annual growth compared to 2018:

Service Provider2019 Market ShareAnnual Growth
Amazon Web Services32.3%+36.0%
Microsoft Azure16.9%+63.9%
Google Cloud5.8%+87.8%
Alibaba Cloud4.9%+63.8%
Others40.1%+23.3%

It’s no surprise that U.S. companies dominate the cloud service market since the country currently has the largest share of global cloud storage worldwide. Yet, the concentration of cloud storage is predicted to even out in the next few years—by 2025, the U.S. portion of public cloud storage will drop from 51% to 31%, while China’s will increase from just 6% to 13%.

What’s Next for the Cloud?

The cloud has changed the way we use the internet. It has influenced the way we share information, our ability to work remotely, and how we store our data.

And these services are much needed, as our use of data and the internet continues to scale up. By 2025, an average internet user will have around 4,909 data interactions per day, an increase from 1,426 in the year 2020.

At the same time, the scale of global datasphere is expected to be five times bigger in 2025 than it was in 2018, growing from 33 zettabytes to 175 zettabytes. Each zettabyte, by the way, is equal to 1 trillion gigabytes.

With data taking an ever more important role in our lives, the cloud is becoming an indispensable part of business, technology, and society as a whole.

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Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Nearly 800,000 AI jobs were posted in the U.S. throughout 2022. View this graphic to see a breakdown by state.

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Visualizing the Top U.S. States for AI Jobs

Much ink has been spilled over fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate jobs in the economy. While some of those fears may be well-founded, red-hot interest in AI innovation is creating new jobs as well.

This graphic visualizes data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, which shows how many AI-related jobs were posted in each state throughout 2022.

In total there were 795,624 AI jobs posted throughout the year, of which 469,925 (59%) were in the top 10. The full tally is included in the table below.

RankStateNumber of job postings% of total
1California142,15417.9%
2Texas66,6248.4%
3New York43,8995.5%
4Massachusetts34,6034.3%
5Virginia34,2214.3%
6Florida33,5854.2%
7Illinois31,5694.0%
8Washington31,2843.9%
9Georgia26,6203.3%
10Michigan25,3663.2%
11North Carolina23,8543.0%
12New Jersey23,4472.9%
13Colorado20,4212.6%
14Pennsylvania20,3972.6%
15Arizona19,5142.5%
16Ohio19,2082.4%
17Maryland16,7692.1%
18Minnesota11,8081.5%
19Tennessee11,1731.4%
20Missouri10,9901.4%
21Oregon10,8111.4%
22Washington, D.C.9,6061.2%
23Indiana9,2471.2%
24Connecticut8,9601.1%
25Wisconsin8,8791.1%
26Alabama7,8661.0%
27Kansas7,6831.0%
28Arkansas7,2470.9%
29Utah6,8850.9%
30Nevada6,8130.9%
31Idaho6,1090.8%
32Oklahoma5,7190.7%
33Iowa5,6700.7%
34South Carolina4,9280.6%
35Louisiana4,8060.6%
36Kentucky4,5360.6%
37Nebraska4,0320.5%
38Delaware3,5030.4%
39New Mexico3,3570.4%
40Rhode Island2,9650.4%
41New Hampshire2,7190.3%
42Hawaii2,5500.3%
43Mississippi2,5480.3%
44Maine2,2270.3%
45South Dakota2,1950.3%
46Vermont1,5710.2%
47North Dakota1,2270.2%
48Alaska9700.1%
49West Virginia8870.1%
50Montana8330.1%
51Wyoming7690.1%

The following chart adds some context to these numbers. It shows how the percentage of AI job postings in some of the top states has changed since 2010.

We can see that California quickly became the primary destination for AI jobs in the early 2010s, presumably as Silicon Valley companies began developing the technology.

California’s share has since declined, with a significant number of jobs seemingly moving to Texas. In fact, many tech companies are relocating to Texas to avoid California’s relatively higher taxes and cost of living.

The 10 Most In-Demand Specialized Skills

Lightcast also captured the top 10 specialized skills that were required for AI-related jobs. These are listed in the table below.

SkillFrequency (number of postings)Frequency (% of postings)
Python296,66237%
Computer Science260,33333%
SQL185,80723%
Data Analysis159,80120%
Data Science157,85520%
Amazon Web Services155,61519%
Agile Methodology152,96519%
Automation138,79117%
Java133,85617%
Software Engineering133,28617%

If you’re interested in a career that focuses on AI, becoming proficient in Python is likely to be a good first step.

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