With record sales topping $544 billion in 2022 and no sign of descent in sight, the public cloud and related services continue to soar to new heights.

Synergy Research Group is anticipating total sales to double over the next four years, topping $1 trillion. Public cloud revenue is made up of a combination of various services—for example, infrastructure as-a-service, platform as-a-service, along with software as-a-service, and content delivery network. Growth is driven by investment in cloud-based infrastructure, with a focus on data backup and security, reinvestment by cloud providers, and increased adoption of cloud solutions and service offerings, for example, an increase in the use of cloud-based offerings for analytics and enterprise applications.

In addition to the growth of sales within the public cloud sector, the related spending tied to the delivery of cloud-based services and infrastructure is also growing. Cloud industry leaders continue to invest in the building and equipping of data centers. Synergy Research Group reports that public cloud providers spent $120 billion in 2022 on their buildings, leases, and equipment for their data center infrastructure.

Between high investment, expanding service offerings, and the anticipated higher spending, whether to move to the cloud or what to move to the cloud is a question for companies to consider throughout 2023.