9 Cloud Computing Trends for 2024 – Building Your Online Infrastructure

In an age of accelerated digital transformation, cloud computing has emerged as a transformative force, revolutionizing how businesses manage data and scale their operations. As such, embracing the latest cloud computing trends is no longer an option but a strategic imperative to drive your business’s growth, enhance its agility, and secure a competitive edge.

At Business2Comunity, we’ve done the hard work and analyzed a plethora of industry sources to deliver 9 cloud computing trends for 2024 and beyond. Dive into these top cloud computing trends to harness the power of cloud technology and propel your business forward.

What are 2024’s Cloud Computing Trends?

Cloud computing allows organizations to leverage virtual computing resources, eliminating the need for costly investments in on-premises infrastructure and data centers.

In a Foundry report, 50% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) credit cloud capabilities for achieving sustainable revenue growth over the past year.

90% of companies in an Accenture study reported achieving a significant measure of expected cloud value. A further 42% of companies have fully achieved outcomes such as:

• Cost savings
• Speed
• Business enablement
• Improved service levels
• Resilience
• Business continuity

…marking an overall increase of 7% from 2018.

Some of the key trends enabling these benefits include multi-cloud, sustainability, edge computing, AI, and more. Let’s explore them in greater detail below.

1. Multi and Hybrid Cloud Solutions See Greater Demand

As cloud technology evolves, small and large enterprises are adapting their strategies for specific workloads through:

• Multi-cloud adoption (buying services from more than one cloud service provider)
• Hybrid cloud architectures (combining cloud with on-premises infrastructure)
• Primary cloud vendor consolidation

Hybrid cloud combines the power of public and private clouds, providing increased flexibility, scalability, and security. Hybrid cloud infrastructure is now used by 72% of organizations, up from just 58% in 2019.

Multi-cloud refers to the use of multiple clouds within the same system, such as employing two or more public clouds or two or more private clouds.

According to a recent Hashicorp report:

• 76% of organizations have adopted a multi-cloud strategy, and this number is expected to increase to 86% by 2024.
• 73% of organizations say multi-cloud infrastructure has advanced their business goals.
• The most common multi-cloud drivers are reliability (51%), cost reduction (48%), mitigating security risks and governance (45%), digital transformation (45%), and scalability (45%).

2. Low-Code and No-Code is on the Rise

Amid rapid digital transformation and tech talent shortages, no-code or low-code software development platforms are growing in popularity. Statista predicted that the low code market will grow at a CAGR of 26.1%, surpassing $32 billion in 2024.

By 2025, Gartner anticipates that organizations will build 70% of their new applications using low-code or no-code platforms, up from less than 25% in 2020.

Low code and no code cloud platforms help developers create applications through graphical user interfaces rather than traditional coding methods. Furthermore, these platforms enable organizations to build cloud-native applications 10 times faster with 70% resource savings.

3. Public Cloud Spending Increases

Cloud services remain the primary focus in tech, with spending expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2024.

According to a 2023 Flexera report:

• 96% of organizations use the public cloud.
• 72% incorporate the public cloud into their hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• 13% use multiple public clouds.
• 11% rely on a single public cloud.
• 2% use a single private cloud.

As more organizations embrace the public cloud as a cost-effective solution for hosting enterprise and customer-facing applications, spending on public clouds is set to surpass that on private clouds.

Fueled by the adoption of new platforms and as-a-service offerings, including artificial intelligence (AI) services, the IDC anticipates that spending on public cloud services will surpass $1.35 trillion in 2027.

4. Cloud Sustainability Gains Momentum

According to IBM, 42% of global decision-makers now use the cloud to help deploy, track, and manage sustainability goals.

In a TCS global study, 67% of respondents say cloud technologies have helped their organizations achieve sustainability goals.

Companies that adopt sustainable practices into their operations stand to gain significant financial incentives, including margins 4.7x higher than their competitors, according to Accenture research.

The world’s largest cloud vendors have made net-zero commitments and are actively helping customers reduce their cloud costs and carbon footprints.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) the world’s most widely adopted cloud provider, is committed to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. This is part of its broader goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

• In 2022, 90% of the electricity consumed by the digital leader was attributed to renewable energy sources.
• Moving on-premises workloads to AWS can lower customers’ workload carbon footprints by nearly 80%.
• AWS infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient.
• AWS data centers are up to 5 times more energy efficient than other enterprise data centers.

Meanwhile, Google has committed to net-zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2030. The average Google data center:

• Is twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center.
• Delivers five times more computing power per unit of electrical power compared to five years ago.

5. Cloud Computing Goes to the Edge

Edge computing, which involves processing data closer to its source, is an emerging cloud computing trend. It solves key cloud challenges such as data latency, boosting performance, and efficiency.

According to the IDC, service providers will invest over $208 billion in enabling edge offerings across 400 use cases in 2023. By 2026, expenditures are set to increase by 53% to over $317 billion.

In an Accenture report, the most advanced edge adopters, characterized by their cloud-based approach, strategic use of edge computing, and enterprise-wide implementation, achieve:

• 4x greater innovation
• 9x higher efficiency
• 7x improved cost-effectiveness

Gartner also predicts that organizations adopting an edge architecture to isolate and segment their networks will experience a 25% reduction in successful cyberattacks.

6. AI in Cloud Computing Expands

Artificial intelligence (AI) in cloud computing empowers businesses with the infrastructure, resources, and tools necessary to effectively deploy and manage AI applications, while simultaneously reducing costs, enhancing scalability, and bolstering security.

In a 2023 NetApp report, 37% of tech executives report that over 50% of their cloud deployments will be supported by AI-driven applications. By 2030, this number is expected to almost double.

In the same report, it was reported that the top drivers for AI cloud investment include:

• Scaling AI and automation – 39%
• Driving business innovation – 35%
• Creating new digital experiences for customers – 34%

AI is increasingly seen as critical to driving multiple business benefits. Top organizational benefits include:

• 40% greater security and risk assessment.
• 38% improvement in customer experience.
• 37% increase in production rate.

74% of organizations are leveraging public cloud AI and analytics services. With many businesses lacking the vast amounts of computing power or AI infrastructure required to train AI models, AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) is gaining momentum.

Major cloud providers are integrating AI and machine learning (ML) features into their core offerings, enabling businesses to enhance their applications with speech, vision, data analysis, and decision-making capabilities.

7. Everything-as-a-Service Continues to Grow in Use

Everything as a Service (XaaS) is a cloud computing trend revolutionizing the way businesses deploy applications. It extends beyond traditional Software as a Service (SaaS) to include services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

XaaS provides a comprehensive cloud computing infrastructure that empowers businesses to deploy applications seamlessly, streamline the development process, and reduce costs.

This growing trend not only offers flexibility in scaling resources but also ensures the efficient use of cloud-based services.

In an EY report, the share of organizations generating more than 80% of their revenues from XaaS is expected to surge from 3% to 19% over the next three to five years.

Meanwhile, the global XaaS market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.4%, or from $700 billion in 2023 to over $3 trillion by 2030.

8. Serverless Computing Accelerates

Serverless computing is a cloud computing service model enabling development teams to build and deploy applications without provisioning or managing servers. This, in turn, results in cost-effectiveness, scalability, and agility.

Major cloud companies such as the Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and Azure now offer distinct serverless services designed to address unique developer workloads.

Adoption is accelerating, with over 50% of AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure customers now using one or more serverless solutions in 2023.

9. Cloud Cost Optimization Remains a Priority

94% of organizations are still wasting money in the cloud and for the first time in a decade, managing cloud spend (82%) surpassed security (79%) as the number one challenge in 2023.

As per a Foundry report, 83% of organizations now have practices in place for managing costs, specifically:

• 42% are implementing cost optimization strategies (for example, shutting off unused resources).
• 37% are using automation to monitor and allocate resources based on demand.
• 28% are starting to leverage cost management or FinOps tools.

The potential cost savings from these measures can range from 15% to 20% over 18 to 36 months, with the highest savings exceeding 25%.

As competition intensifies, cloud providers are expected to invest in new tools and services to attract new segments and help their customers manage costs, making it one of the most important cloud computing trends.

The Future of Cloud Computing

Future trends in cloud computing indicate a rapidly evolving and multifaceted cloud computing environment.

Major Industry Shifts Anticipated

Major shifts around AI and specialized industry solutions are on the horizon. In the gaming industry, for example, cloud gaming is revolutionizing the customer experience, allowing users to stream high-end games across devices while eliminating the need for costly hardware upgrades.

Cloud Security and Resilience will be Strengthened

As investment in cloud computing services accelerates, cloud providers will prioritize enhanced encryption, authentication, and disaster recovery strategies. Cloud security solutions, such as Security Access Service Edge (SASE), will strengthen security postures, allowing organizations to harness the transformative power of cloud computing.

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