Cloud Computing

Cloud computing — the delivery of computing services (servers, storage, databases, networking, software) over the internet — transformed the technology industry after Amazon Web Services launched in 2006. Before cloud computing, every startup or enterprise had to own and maintain its own server infrastructure; after, they could rent computing power on demand, paying only for what they use. This shifted capital expenditure to operational expenditure and democratized access to powerful computing. The three dominant providers — AWS (33% market share), Azure (22%), Google Cloud (11%) — together control the majority of cloud computing. AWS's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and S3 (Simple Storage Service) launched in 2006 essentially created the modern tech startup ecosystem — companies like Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, and Slack were built on AWS. Cloud computing enables: massive scalability (Netflix serves 200M+ users from cloud infrastructure); geographic distribution; disaster recovery; and access to AI/ML tools that would be prohibitively expensive to build independently.