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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 Internet Usage by Global Region

In this infographic, we map out internet usage by global region based on the latest data from the World Bank.

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Map showing internet usage by region.

Visualizing Internet Usage by Global Region

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Digital technologies have become an integral part of our daily lives, transforming communications, business, health, education, and more. Yet, billions of people around the world are still offline, and digital advancement has been uneven.

Here, we map internet usage by region based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

Digitalization Has Been Uneven

According to the World Bank, between 2018 and 2022, the world gained 1.5 billion new internet users.

In 2020 alone, the share of the global population using the internet increased by 6% (500 million people), marking the highest jump in history. India, in particular, has seen high rates of adoption. For example, in 2018, only 20% of Indians used the internet. By 2022, this percentage had grown to more than 50%.

RegionIndividuals using the internet (% of population)
East Asia & Pacific74
Europe & Central Asia87
Latin America & the Caribbean76
Middle East & North Africa77
North America92
South Asia42
Sub-Saharan Africa34

However, the progress of digitalization has been uneven both within and across countries.

In 2022, one-third of the global population remained offline, with parts of Asia and Africa still experiencing very low rates of internet usage. For instance, more than half of businesses in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Senegal reportedly lack internet connection.

According to the World Bank’s report, when fast internet becomes available, the probability of an individual being employed increases by up to 13%, and total employment per firm increases by up to 22%. Moreover, firm exports nearly quadruple with the availability of fast internet. Across Africa, 3G coverage has been associated with a reduction in extreme poverty, with reductions of 10% seen in Senegal and 4.3% in Nigeria.

Curious to learn more about the internet? Check out this animated chart that shows the most popular web browsers since 1994.

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