Gartner Forecasts 20.4% Growth In Global Public Cloud Spending To $675 Bn In 2024

Gartner, a research and advisory firm, predicts continued growth in global public cloud spending, reaching USD 675.4 billion in 2024, a 20.4 per cent increase from USD 561 billion in 2023. This growth is attributed to two key drivers: generative AI (GenAI) and application modernisation.

"The ongoing development of general-purpose AI models and the increasing adoption of GenAI-enabled applications at scale are significant contributors to the anticipated growth in public cloud spending," said Sid Nag, Vice President Analyst, Gartner. "We expect this trend to continue, with public cloud end-user spending exceeding USD 1 trillion before the end of the decade."

Gartner's forecast anticipates growth across all cloud service segments in 2024. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is expected to experience the highest growth rate at 25.6 per cent, followed by platform-as-a-service (PaaS) at 20.6 per cent.

"The robust growth rate in IaaS reflects the ongoing GenAI revolution," commented Nag. He further added, "The demand for infrastructure to support AI model training, inference and fine-tuning is continuously rising and is expected to show exponential growth, directly impacting IaaS consumption."

While cloud infrastructure and platform services are driving the most significant spending growth, Software-as-a-service (SaaS) remains the largest public cloud market segment in terms of end-user spending. SaaS spending is projected to reach USD 247.2 billion in 2024, reflecting a 20 per cent increase.

"The growth in SaaS spending is driven by the modernisation of applications by independent software vendors to a SaaS-based consumption model," explained Nag. “Organisations are increasingly leveraging the cloud for specific use cases like AI, machine learning, Internet of Things and big data, further propelling SaaS growth.”