More than half of IT enterprise spending will shift to the cloud by 2025, with carbon emissions driving cloud purchase decisions

Enterprise IT spending on public cloud computing, within addressable market segments, will overtake spending on traditional IT in 2025, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner’s ‘cloud shift’ research includes only those enterprise IT categories that can transition to the cloud within the application software, infrastructure software, business process services, and system infrastructure markets. By 2025, 51% of IT spending in these four categories will have shifted from traditional solutions to the public cloud, compared to 41% in 2022. Almost two-thirds (65.9%) of spending on application software will be directed toward cloud technologies in 2025, up from 57.7% in 2022.

Demand for integration capabilities, agile work processes, and composable architecture will drive a continued shift to the cloud, as long-term digital transformation and modernization initiatives are brought forward to 2022. More than $1.3 trillion in enterprise IT spending is at stake from the shift to cloud in 2022, growing to almost $1.8 trillion in 2025, according to Gartner. Ongoing disruption to IT markets by the cloud will be amplified by the introduction of new technologies, including distributed cloud. 

Also, by 2025, according to Gartner, the carbon emissions of hyper-scale cloud services will be a top-three criterion in cloud purchase decisions. As environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities and reporting received growing levels of enterprise attention, more than 90% of organizations increased their investments in sustainability programs since the start of the pandemic compared to investments in 2017. “Hyperscalers are aggressively investing in sustainable cloud operations and delivery, aspiring to eventually achieve net-zero emissions within the decade, or sooner (…)”, said Ed Anderson, also research vice president at Gartner.

Nevertheless, Anderson said that while essentially all cloud providers have sustainability initiatives in place, their progress in meeting carbon reduction goals and strategies for achieving net-zero carbon emissions varies wildly. “Sustainability metrics and workload placement tools are still immature and not always transparent, making it difficult for organizations to fully and accurately assess true sustainability impacts of their cloud usage today,” said Anderson.

Source: Gartner / Gartner. Date: January 24 and February 9, 2022

Implications for Costa Rica

The expectations around the spending on the cloud for the following years allow us to think that cloud computing is a trend that will stay far beyond the pandemic. In this scenario, hiring these services providers with low or zero carbon emissions will be crucial to accomplish ESG priorities. If your company is looking for cloud services providers with a proven sustainability record and international experience, then Costa Rica might be the best fit for you. 

According to PROCOMER’s research, the Costa Rican ICT sector that offers services based on 4.0 technologies, is mostly specialized in cloud computing (20% of this group). Also, 50% of these 4.0 technology companies export to the USA. In terms of sustainability, 99,9% of electricity comes from renewable resources, which allows ICT companies based in Costa Rica to have a low carbon footprint compared to other providers around the globe. If you are interested in learning more about Costa Rican ICT services, let us know at newyork@procomer.com