The topic of multi-cloud, i.e. the use of multiple cloud providers, will become increasingly important in 2022. Customers are increasingly aware of the risks involved in committing to just one provider. The multi-cloud trend will therefore lead to greater choice, price arbitrage and risk management, both in geopolitical terms and in terms of resilience. A multi-cloud approach helps to ensure business continuity and reduce costs. At the same time, users want to deal with servers as little as possible. This is why the introduction of modern cloud architectures will continue to progress rapidly, both on the container side, particularly with Kubernetes, and on the serverless side. According to the Gartner study "Kubernetes and the Battle for Cloud-native Infrastructures", 85% of companies will be using containers in production operations by 2025, compared to less than 30% in 2020. This strong growth indicates an increased demand for scalability and flexibility of the architecture. Lower costs and simplification of the application not only enable more efficient use of resources, but also allow for more efficient work, as less time needs to be spent on managing technology.

Cloud architecture increasingly modular

As technological requirements are constantly evolving and new applications are needed, the cloud architecture must be increasingly modular. On the one hand, to support future applications and, on the other, to ensure that the product ecosystems work well together. This becomes particularly clear when new technologies become established, which is also reflected in the predicted tripling of the market volume for cloud microservices between 2020 and 2026. The agility, scalability and efficiency of microservice architecture are too important to be ignored. Scaleway therefore believes that IDC's 2018 prediction that 90 percent of applications will have a microservice architecture by 2022 will actually come true this year. In order to build modular container or serverless architectures, an additional focus will be placed on connecting "glue" products, such as messaging & queueing or observability.

Open source as a great pioneer?

Open source is the ideal solution for creating a level playing field. As the software community increasingly moves away from proprietary and patented products, the threshold for using advanced technologies is significantly lowered. This opens the doors for individuals and organizations with fewer resources - be it start-ups, scale-ups, non-profit organizations, organizations from developing countries and others. However, the question remains: who pays for high-quality open source products? Who really controls them?

The EU is reshaping competitive conditions

Leading markets - such as the US and China - are pursuing asymmetric public procurement policies that favor their local cloud service providers and put European counterparts at a disadvantage in global competition. The European Union will intervene to level the playing field, which will be done in two ways:

• Regulation of digital "gatekeepers" through the Digital Markets Act and the Data Act
• Implementation of a cloud industry policy based on a level playing field, software sovereignty and a new Buy European Tech Act.

Beyond 2022

Some other trends that will fundamentally reshape the digital landscape:

• Global cloud industry revenue is outpacing telecom revenue, with IDC forecasting that the public cloud segment will grow 21 percent by 2025, reaching $809 billion in revenue. If growth continues - and Scaleway expects this to be the case - cloud revenue is likely to surpass telecoms revenue before the end of the decade.
• Web3 and blockchain technology will catch on faster: Blockchain and Web3 are seen as "the next era of the internet". It remains to be seen whether the hype will come true. However, with Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions based on multi-cloud infrastructures, it will be easier for anyone to take advantage of blockchain without the need for in-depth technical knowledge.
• The metaverse will create a lot of new market players: Has the time finally come for VR and AR to become mainstream? Will 2022 be the year for Meta? "Metaverse" is currently on everyone's lips and relies on significant cloud support to really take off. In the meantime, Meta may struggle to emerge as a team player, even though Mark Zuckerberg has already (reluctantly?) admitted that one platform will not rule them all.
• Apple will get involved in the AR market: With its announcement of new technologies at WWDC and AR-compatible glasses rumored to launch in 2022, Apple will significantly increase demand for 5G and low-latency telecom/cloud infrastructures.
• Europe will get involved in the quantum computing market: Europe has already been at the starting line here since 2019 and yet it may be too late to compete with the tech giants Google and IBM. In any case, the impetus in Europe will not come from large tech companies, but from numerous research institutions and regional start-ups. The race has only just begun!