Generative AI is completely transforming the way we build, use, and even think about technology. Recent progress has sparked a new era of innovation, one that McKinsey estimates could deliver a $4.4 trillion boost to the global economy.
The next big AI product could come from anyone, anywhere, and change everyone’s lives. Yet a handful of large technology companies in the United States still control much of the world’s cloud computing infrastructure. These hyperscalers embody the philosophy of Silicon Valley with their ambitious goals and aggressive strategies. They are territorial and competitive and while this may lead to exceptional service for some customers, it may compromise others.
These companies’ cloud supremacy stifles innovation. By making developers increasingly dependent on their services, they take an unfair share of the market, excluding smaller cloud startups that often offer more agile and affordable solutions.
If we are to truly unlock the transformative potential of AI, we must promote a more democratic cloud: one in which developers have the freedom to choose their providers and build the ideal cloud infrastructure to achieve their goals. This will promote interoperability, streamline the application development lifecycle, and ultimately lead to better AI products and services.
Marketing Director at Vultr.
Traditional Hyperscalers
The big three – Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud – used to be the only three. Just eight years ago, these providers were virtually the only option for any organization working in the cloud.
Since then, the environment has changed rapidly. It’s now said that “every business is a technology company,” and research shows that this is true. It’s not just the world’s large enterprises and governments that need substantial cloud support, but also startups, mid-market players, and even companies whose core offering isn’t a product at all technological.
However, the “essential” of one organization is the overload of another. What might be a useful feature for a global mega-company could be a major obstacle for a small AI developer. Product overload creates more inefficiencies than benefits, and these inefficiencies will eventually pass on to the customer because applications will not be able to meet performance requirements.
The Big Three are known for their product overload; in their efforts to outdo their competitors in innovation, they offer their customers complicated features that most of them will never need. That said, the solution isn’t to oust the Big Three in a cloud market coup, but to create a more equitable cloud ecosystem as a whole – and that starts by letting companies know they have options.
Hope in the independent market
The AI boom is accelerating the growth of independent cloud providers. Beyond supporting cloud engineers, developers need expanded solutions for their data science teams, whose work training and maintaining AI requires various IT resources. This need has precipitated a wave of demand for leaner, cheaper cloud providers.
Cloud agnostics allow small businesses to develop, test, and deploy based on their unique business needs. However, “independent” certainly doesn’t mean disjointed or new to the market. These providers use the latest products in strategically located data centers around the world, and their solutions help businesses scale and meet demand.
Multicloud and hybrid cloud adoption has also accelerated as developers seek improved flexibility and scalability. By orchestrating their operations across multiple clouds, businesses can save money while building an IT toolkit that best supports their growth.
This growing independent cohort also challenges the cloud market’s long-standing focus on the United States. Deploying at the edge requires localized support, and when developers can build close to home while deploying close to their customers, they will deliver better software performance while simultaneously streamlining their development and testing operations. Cloud agnostics are ideally suited to this type of agility and are popping up all over the world.
Democratizing the Cloud for AI and Beyond
Cloud democratization is crucial for the sustainability of AI development. AI workloads are very resource intensive, and at the current pace of innovation, future AI programs will require even more complex solutions to support the processing load. ChatGPT is far from the final frontier, and as generative AI becomes smarter and more capable, developers will need more custom cloud options. When businesses first moved to the cloud, many found themselves locked into a single vendor, and they don’t plan to repeat that with AI. By improving the accessibility of composable and multi-cloud strategies, we can enable businesses of all sizes and scope to grow.
Don’t get me wrong. The Big Three have a place in a democratized cloud market: they offer valuable services and can provide the vast computing power needed by global mega-corporations. But for the other 90%, we need a thriving, independent market to drive the innovation that will deliver an AI-driven future. In the age of AI, every organization in every region of the world should have the power to build, test, and deploy ML-based cloud-native applications.
We have presented the best cloud backup.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel, where we feature the best and brightest minds in today’s technology industry. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you would like to contribute, find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro