Sovereign cloud is set to rule. But can the market keep up?
Digital sovereignty, once a regulatory focus for nations, has evolved into a cross-industry concern, signalling a transformative shift in the digital landscape.
Over the next 3 years, sovereign cloud solutions are poised to make a substantial impact on the market, with a projected reach of $258.5 billion by 2027, according to a recent IDC study. This correlates to an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.6 percent throughout the forecast period.
This is not merely a passing trend; it represents a paradigm shift. Organizations across all sectors are recognizing the value of sovereign cloud solutions for protecting their sensitive data and ensuring compliance.
In 2024, we’ll see cloud strategies of all organizations shifting to more sovereign solutions.
However, the pressing question remains, what solutions are out there for organizations without endlessly deep pockets?
In the first blog of our sovereign cloud series, I outlined a taxonomy of a sovereign cloud and challenged the notion of “check-box sovereign cloud”, advocating for a more holistic approach to achieving true digital sovereignty.
I argued that simply ticking boxes around data security, access, and compliance (the ‘check-box’ approach) is not enough for genuine independence and resilience in the digital world. True cloud sovereignty, I suggest, requires a broader vision that focuses on:
- National resilience: Building robust supply chains, fostering local manufacturing, and investing in skills development to reduce dependency on foreign technologies and services.
- Strategic autonomy: Empowering organizations and nations to act decisively, safeguard their data, and chart their own course in the digital realm.
Importantly, I criticized “check-box” solutions offered by major cloud providers like Microsoft, arguing that they lock customers into specific ecosystems, cost a bomb, and do not address the deeper motivations for pursuing digital sovereignty.
The 2024 wide scale uptake of sovereign cloud isn’t just about ticking regulatory boxes. While that’s important, it’s driven by a powerful new wave of concerns:
- Dominance of the few: Despite investigations into non competitive practices here in the UK, fears of overreach and over-saturation of a few powerful cloud providers, there are less and less options for cloud solutions that can offer independence, easy migration and true multi-cloud strategies.
- Heightened cybersecurity threats: Data breaches and cyber attacks are on the rise, making robust security measures more crucial than ever. GDPR and CCPA are raising awareness about data rights and prompting organizations to take control of their data but it only takes a breach to bring data privacy to the fore.
- Prohibitive prices: Many “sovereign cloud” solutions offered by major providers limit choice and lock customers into specific ecosystems. With support requirements difficult to fulfil, they require third party and local support, hiking the costs up significantly (in excess of $100 million in may cases) and rendering sovereign cloud out of reach for most organizations, and even nations.
As the market continues to demand sovereign cloud solutions at a reasonable price for all organizations, there just aren’t enough options in the market to meet demand. And the way sovereign clouds are built today, it’s unlikely any of the larger providers will be able to provide a solution for organizations seeking greater control and autonomy.
HyperCloud is a technology designed to help organizations achieve greater independence and manage their own private cloud for sensitive data at a fraction of the cost.
For all organizations considering sovereign cloud solutions, HyperCloud has to be in your considerations.
The future of cloud computing is sovereign, and it’s here to stay. Just at what cost?
