New data from Synergy Research Group shows that Q4 enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services was $91 billion worldwide, up $17 billion or 22% from the fourth quarter of 2023. The full-year 2024 market reach $330 billion, up $60 billion from 2023 and an increase of $102 billion from 2022.
It is notable that ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022, and generative AI services and technology have helped to propel the market since then. Synergy data and analysis shows that generative AI has driven half of the market growth over the last two years, through a combination of new GenAI platform services, GPU as a service, and enhancements to a wide range of other cloud services. In terms of competitive positioning, Amazon maintains a strong lead in the market though Microsoft and Google once again had a higher percentage of growth. Their Q4 worldwide market shares were 30%, 21% and 12% respectively.
Among the tier two cloud providers, those with the highest year-on-year growth rates include CoreWeave, Oracle, Snowflake, Cloudflare and Databricks. Notably, CoreWeave has now broken into the top twenty ranking of cloud providers thanks to its AI and GPU services.
With most of the major cloud providers having now released their earnings data for Q4, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) were $90.6 billion, with full-year 2024 revenues reaching $330.4 billion. Public IaaS and PaaS services account for the bulk of the market and those grew by 24% in Q4.
The dominance of the major cloud providers is even more pronounced in public cloud, where the top three account for 68% of the market. Geographically, the cloud market continues to grow strongly in all regions of the world. When measured in local currencies the major countries with the strongest growth included Brazil, Spain, Italy, India and Japan, all growing at rates above the worldwide average.
The US remains by far the largest cloud market, with its scale far surpassing the whole APAC region. The US market grew by 23% in Q4. In Europe the largest cloud markets are the UK and Germany, but the big markets with the highest growth rates were Ireland, Spain and Italy.
“Q4 was another strong quarter for cloud services, helping to drive a full-year growth rate that was a full four percentage points higher than 2023. For such a big market that is an impressive acceleration of growth,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “How much of that was down to AI? ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022 and helped to bolster service development through 2023 and then boost more aggressive market growth through 2024. Our assessment is that since ChatGPT was launched, GenAI has been responsible for at least half of the increase in cloud service revenues. That has come from either newly launched GenAI/GPU services or from AI-driven improvements to existing cloud services.”
