Article: China set to take over the cloud in a matter of years?

Cloud computing is one of the fastest-growing sectors in high tech with global revenues set to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2030 up from just over $600 billion today. Those are staggering numbers driven by staggering growth. However, according to an article in The Hill, China could outpace today's top-performing cloud providers, namely AWS, Azure, and GCP in a matter of years - not decades.

How could this be you ask? This is happening because China is subsidizing cloud providers such as Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu who are expanding rapidly while being able to undercut competitors on prices.

In Southeast Asia for instance, Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent have more availability zones than AWS, Google, or Microsoft with hundreds of millions more planned to be invested into the region. Not only that, but in Latin America "PRC cloud providers are growing at more than 60 percent per year with Huawei Cloud customers in the region doubling in 2021 alone." At this pace, PRC cloud providers could outpace the US and the "US could lose its leadership position on cloud in a matter of years, rather than decades".

So the U.S., as the article suggests, should have a cloud strategy in order to ensure that the U.S. remains the global leader in cloud computing. Just as in the semiconductor industry, the government must step in to level the playing field that the PRC distorts so much to its advantage.