Hyperscale, self-build, enterprise cloud adoption, new company formation, MEA
There was significant activity across hyperscale, along with a number of developments coming out of MEA and earnings season is in full swing.
We looked at the results of AWS, Google and Microsoft last week and while growth rates have slowed, scale continues to accumulate. This is happening on the hardware and innovation side and Google Cloud is now said to be looking to build its own chips. Another area where hyperscalers are looking to exploit scale is in the data centre. AWS looks to be self-building more in Ohio, while planning and building more data centres in Dublin, Ireland. The self-build often go hand-in-hand with renewable energy purchases and Meta is sourcing more solar power, also in the Ohio area, while AWS had a record year when it comes to buying renewable energy. While scale continues to build at the hyperscalers, they have not been immune to headcount reductions. Microsoft was the latest to cut into its cloud workforce.
Enterprise adoption of cloud continues to push forward. Uber has built a lot of its infrastructure internally and now has started the move away from that model, signing matching long-term contracts with two different public clouds.
New company formation remains in motion as the wider addressable market grows. CleanArc is targeting the hyperscale market in North America, nLighten is going after the market in Germany, while ECL was formed to development edge data centres that are off-grid and powered by hydrogen.
Hyperscale has become a global business and it continues to expand around the world. Microsoft is building a data centre region in Saudi Arabia, joining Oracle Cloud in this market, and groups in the region are looking to serve this emerging opportunity.
Finally, we continue to move through earnings season and we spent time this week on the SMB side, where there were also headcount reductions. GoDaddy and Digital Ocean reported solid results, but both also cut back on workforce in anticipation of the slower growth environment.
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