The global cloud revenue is forecast to reach $474 billion in 2022, up from $408 billion in 2021, as the ongoing pandemic and the surge in digital services are making cloud the centrepiece of new digital experiences.

Over the next few years, market research firm Gartner estimated that cloud revenue will surpass non-cloud revenue for relevant enterprise IT markets.

“There is no business strategy without a cloud strategy. The adoption and interest in public cloud continues unabated as organisations pursue a “cloud first” policy for onboarding new workloads,” said Milind Govekar, distinguished vice president at Gartner.

Cloud has enabled new digital experiences such as mobile payment systems where banks have invested in startups, energy companies using cloud to improve their customers’ retail experiences or car companies launching new personalisation services for customer’s safety and infotainment, he added.

Gartner said that more than 85 per cent of organisations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025 and will not be able to fully execute on their digital strategies without the use of cloud-native architectures and technologies.

“Adopting cloud-native platforms means that digital or product teams will use architectural principles and capabilities to take advantage of the inherent capabilities within the cloud environment,” said Govekar.

“New workloads deployed in a cloud-native environment will be pervasive, not just popular and anything non-cloud will be considered legacy.”

By 2025, Gartner estimates that over 95 per cent of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms, up from 30 per cent in 2021.

By the same time period, 70 per cent of new applications developed by organisations will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25 per cent in 2020.