Cloud computing has the potential to grow substantially in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, market leaders like Google Cloud have said.
According to the market research company IDC, the GCC public cloud market is expected to more than double by 2024, growing from $956m in 2020 to $2.35 billion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 percent.
In 2021, Google Cloud commissioned “Alphabeta” to conduct an independent study on cloud potential in the Middle East. The research, which focused on the opportunities in 10 Middle Eastern countries, showed that rapid cloud adoption can generate up to $600 billion by 2030 in these countries.
Saudi Arabia alone could generate $202 billion by fully utilizing digital technologies, especially in the public sector, consumer, retail and hospitality, health, manufacturing, education and training, e-commerce and financial services.
Google Cloud told TRENDS it could act as a catalyst in this growth as its solutions can help companies enhance efficiency and agility, cut costs, engage in new business models and capitalize on new market opportunities.
“Being a multi-cloud provider has given us an edge in the region. We are seeing an increase in customers choosing our services because they can grow and scale their products and services with great flexibility,” said Google Cloud.
“The cloud can also help lower costs, provide greater data security, enable better data-driven decision-making, and facilitate greater collaboration – a key in today’s hybrid working environment across all industries,” the company added.
Eight core industries in the region Google Cloud plans to focus on are consumer packaged goods; retail; gaming, media and entertainment; manufacturing, supply chain management and logistics; telecommunications; government; financial services; education and healthcare and life sciences.
What fuels the cloud boom
The pandemic and government investment in massive smart cities and public administration projects have led to a boom in the adoption of cloud computing. Fueling growth also is the growing availability of data centers and managed service choices that help companies to adopt emerging technologies.
International and regional providers are racing to fill the demand.
Google Cloud said that businesses are increasingly adopting cloud to protect their data, apps, and infrastructure from fraudulent activities while supporting compliance and data confidentiality.
The company stated that the pandemic was a major catalyst that made the region aware of the need for speeding up its digital transformation efforts.
Also, there is a collective economic goal being pursued by governments in the Middle East to go digital, which is evident in several e-government efforts and private enterprises digitizing their services.
Another factor responsible for the growth of cloud computing is an ever-increasing number of cyber-attacks on businesses, governments and individuals.
Threats cloud services face
Security is the most important driver of a company’s digital transformation, according to Google Cloud. The high volume of data flowing between organizations and cloud service providers generates opportunities for accidental and malicious leaks of sensitive data to unreliable third parties. Most cloud service data breaches contribute to human error, insider threats, malware, weak credentials and criminal activity.
Cloud services expose organizations to new security threats related to authentication and public APIs.
“As more workloads migrate to cloud environments, firms must modify their operations to be more flexible, responsive to the market and customers and must be cost-effective,” said Google Cloud.
The company added that digital transformation occurs in various locations, including a customer’s own data center, hosting facilities and even other clouds. As a result, enterprises require a cloud provider that can assist them in the transformation securely–regardless of where it occurs.