Giants compete for dominance in cloud computing! What new changes will 5G and the epidemic bring?

Following personal computers and the Internet, cloud computing has set off a new wave of IT industry reform. In recent years, with the accelerated application of information technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things, companies in various fields have moved to the cloud, and the cloud computing market has grown rapidly. As a result, international technology giants are increasingly competing for the cloud computing market. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Alibaba, etc. have continued to increase their investment in cloud computing business.

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The battle among giants

Although artificial intelligence is the "new favorite" of technology giants, cloud computing is definitely not an "old guy". Many of the above giants have broken through the bottleneck of performance growth and ushered in a "turnaround" because of the success of cloud computing business. For example, Microsoft, due to missing the mobile Internet, its stock price continued to fall and its development prospects were uncertain. After fully focusing on the field of cloud computing in 2014, it has firmly ranked second in the world in just three years, and its stock price has soared, and its market value has exceeded 1 trillion US dollars.

It turns out that the success of these technology giants today is closely related to cloud computing. Because of this, the competition for cloud computing has gradually entered a white-hot stage, and the industry leader Amazon and the "second" Microsoft have been in constant dispute over a large order. Previously, Amazon, Microsoft and other companies competed for a cloud computing contract worth $10 billion from the US Department of Defense. While the industry generally favored Amazon, it was Microsoft that won the order in the end.

Amazon certainly won't give up, so it filed a lawsuit in court to stop the US Department of Defense from fulfilling its contract with Microsoft. On February 13, a US federal judge decided to temporarily prohibit Microsoft from executing its $10 billion cloud computing contract with the US Department of Defense. Obviously, Microsoft will not give up this huge contract easily, and this farce is expected to continue.

The "big brother" and "number two" are fighting fiercely, and the "number three" has not stopped to watch the show. According to data released by IDC, the market share of Alibaba Cloud, the world's third largest cloud computing service provider, has further increased, continuing to follow Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. The "troika" pattern of Amazon, Microsoft and Alibaba has continued for four years, and the three companies occupy about 70% of the global market share.

In addition to these three giants, IBM and Google are also important players, and their competitiveness should not be underestimated. In addition, domestic Tianyi Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Huawei Cloud, etc. are also developing rapidly. It can be seen that the "hot cake" of cloud computing will attract more powerful players to continue to enter the market, and market competition will continue. The competition among mid-level companies is expected to be more intense.

5G brings new changes

If the information industry is likened to humans, then cloud computing is like the heart, providing core basic services such as computing and storage; and 5G is a neural network, which uses a series of sensors and networking technologies to achieve high-speed transmission and perception of information. Therefore, the advent of the 5G commercial era will bring many new changes and more new opportunities to the cloud computing industry.

At present, 5G network applications are becoming more and more widespread, covering scenarios such as smart cities, smart medical care, smart transportation, autonomous driving, and industrial Internet. Terminal applications such as smartphones and VR/AR that integrate 5G technology are also gradually coming out. In the main commercial scenarios of 5G, cloud computing services will show important value, and the "mutual complementation" of 5G and cloud computing will help accelerate commercialization.

Specifically, with the upgrade of cloud computing technology and the deepening of services, more and more industries and enterprises will be exposed to and apply cloud services. Whether it is 8K ultra-high-definition video, telemedicine and teleconferencing, or remote intelligent control, "5G+cloud computing" will make related services more mature and the experience smoother. With the help of 5G technology, cloud computing will be able to extend from industrial cloud and enterprise cloud to new fields such as agricultural cloud.

Cloud computing after the epidemic

In fact, cloud computing has also played a huge role in this sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic. At the Vulcan Mountain Hospital, cloud computing and 5G technology together support the operation of the telemedicine system and the smooth communication of the hospital; during the epidemic, cloud computing also ensures the normal operation of applications such as remote office and online education.

According to data previously released by DingTalk, on the first day after the Spring Festival alone, more than 10 million companies used DingTalk to work from home. Therefore, in the fight against the epidemic, online office and online education have played a great role, but behind this is the silent support of cloud computing. Industry insiders predict that after the epidemic is over, although demand will decline, the newly added cloud computing market will continue to exist.

Gartner predicts that the global cloud computing market revenue is expected to reach 331.2 billion US dollars by 2022. We believe that with the further maturity of the cloud computing industry and the continued reshuffle of the cloud computing industry, the future cloud computing market will present a broader growth prospect. Under this trend, domestic cloud computing companies, especially companies like Huawei with 5G core technology, may usher in huge growth.