Nicola Sfondrini - Partner Cloud Infrastructure and Architecture at PWC.
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For years, the conversation around cloud focused primarily on IT: how cloud could simplify infrastructure, improve scalability and modernize application delivery.
That conversation should now expand. Cloud is rapidly becoming the foundation for how organizations develop products, serve customers, secure operations and adapt to disruption. MIT research found in 2022, for instance, that cloud adoption can eliminate geographic restrictions, allowing companies to expand their talent searches and lower operating expenses.
But that shift also raises strategic questions about how to operate in different regions, so treating cloud mainly as a technology choice is a missed opportunity. In my experience, many organizations approach cloud primarily as a hosting decision, focusing on infrastructure migration without rethinking operating models, engineering practices or business processes.
In these cases, the result is often higher costs, limited agility and little meaningful business impact. Rather than unlocking innovation, cloud becomes a more expensive version of the legacy environment, leaving much of its strategic value unrealized.
Cloud has entered the league of transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure: critical systems that organizations, governments and entire economies now run on.
We need to move the conversation from “How do we migrate to the cloud?” to “How do we leverage cloud to drive innovation, agility and long-term economic value?”
Businesses are beginning to look at the cloud as strategic infrastructure. As an example, top cloud performers are increasing their cloud budgets to leverage GenAI, according to a 2024 survey from my organization.
Governments, economic bodies and policymakers are starting to recognize this reality, beginning to look at cloud not just as IT infrastructure, but economic infrastructure.
Almost every country now has a cloud strategy. The EU, for example, has introduced initiatives around cloud, data governance and digital sovereignty to reduce strategic dependencies on foreign technology providers while strengthening economic resilience and competitiveness.
Even countries that argue for a domestic cloud need to define how that ecosystem is constructed, what limitations are placed on it and how it’s managed. While this doesn’t mean every country must have its own independent cloud ecosystem, the cloud is becoming as vital as any other part of national infrastructure.
Cloud is also becoming a competitive differentiator for countries. Availability and elasticity of cloud services matter for where companies decide to build and run their services. It determines if local companies will have access to the same technologies as their global peers. It affects the competitiveness of digital public services and the local industry’s ability to compete in next-generation supply chains.
Countries that lead in cloud also tend to attract more software development and digital talent. Regions that lack ready access risk being consumers of digital services, not creators, as the UN Trade and Development has pointed out.
Cloud is also an economic game-changer. Having services available on demand allows organizations to start companies with less upfront investment. It allows enterprises to experiment without massive capital expenditure. It enables supply chain collaboration at scale. And it allows software developers to build once and run their services anywhere.
Over time, that can lower the barrier to entry for digital services and compress the timeline between idea and execution. Time to value is how modern competition is won, and cloud enables that.
For large enterprises, cloud also changes the economics of transformation. It allows organizations to embrace more agile business models, scale resilience, accelerate integrations and access new technologies with speed and efficiency. But most importantly, it allows organizations to move resources previously spent on infrastructure to focus on designing value.
When individual businesses operate more efficiently, it creates a bigger economic ecosystem with stronger capacity for innovation and productivity gains. Over time, these micro-level benefits accumulate to create macro-level advantages that translate into a more competitive economy.
That said, trust remains a significant issue. Too many enterprises and public sector organizations hesitate to adopt cloud because they don’t feel in control, as the Cloud Security Alliance research has noted.
Governance is becoming just as important as technical innovation when it comes to cloud. Security, compliance, data portability and transparency are all top of mind for cloud consumers. Organizations see the flexibility cloud offers, but they also need confidence that workloads, data and critical services are protected.
This extends to national infrastructure. Regulation and standards will play a large role in the future of cloud. Leaders need to balance the desire for homegrown cloud with open, interoperable ecosystems that allow organizations to innovate with confidence. Putting too many restrictions on how cloud services can be used not only limits competition but also limits an economy’s ability to innovate with cloud technologies.
The cloud conversations that happen at the country level will influence how businesses are able to use cloud moving forward. Policies that promote innovation and provide guidance around security, interoperability and resilience will result in more confident adoption. Those that do not run the risk of stagnation.
That is why it’s time to change how we talk about cloud. Cloud is far beyond simply migrating workloads to a new environment. It is a strategic resource.
Business and policy leaders who understand this are starting to realize cloud is far more than an IT decision. It is an economic one. Cloud strategies should be aligned with long-term innovation priorities and competitiveness, not just IT modernization plans.
This is why conversations about cloud should start at the executive level, not the procurement department. It’s why governments and industry leaders are beginning to have conversations about cloud capacity as part of national competitiveness.
The cloud conversation is evolving. By framing cloud as merely a technology decision, businesses and governments are only looking at a fraction of its impact. As cloud becomes foundational to innovation and competitiveness, understanding how to maximize value from cloud will prove just as important as understanding how to move to cloud.
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