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Cloud Computing Predictions: Get Ready for 'Cloud Nationalism'

• By David Ramel
• 10/29/2021

The 2022 cloud computing predictions have started, and analyst firm Forrester Research is in with an early entry consisting of only three items.

"The era of cloud nationalism will emerge" is one of the predictions, limited in number because Forrester is hawking a for-pay report that promises to reveal the other seven tips.

That prediction jives perfectly with today's headlines as U.S. lawmakers are probing "big tech" companies like Facebook.

"Regulators and government officials in Washington and Beijing are putting pressure on their respective big tech companies to align with a US-China competition for global, economic, and political influence," a Forrester post reads. "The coming year will bring more nation-state intervention on where and how cloud providers can operate. Meanwhile, the European Union and its constituent members will continue to seek CSPs that can meet requirements for data sovereignty, compelling US and Chinese cloud providers to come up with such solutions or risk irrelevance for much of the European market."

While Forrester's usage of the term "cloud nationalism" fits in with today's headlines, it has actually been around for years. For example, The Wall Street Journal used the term in a 2013 article headlined "The Morning Download: NSA Sparks Cloud Nationalism."

It provides a slightly different take on the term, saying: "Europeans are beginning to demonstrate their preference for non-U.S. cloud vendors, something that CIOs of multinationals need to be concerned about as they plot out their cloud strategies. No longer a matter of hosting data locally, overseas offices of U.S. companies may have to stop doing business with vendors owned by U.S. companies under U.S. jurisdiction. That will make it harder to for CIOs to standardize on one cloud vendor around the world."

The other two Forrester predictions published this week are introduced with headings of:

• You can't always get what you want -- even when you're a $1.8 trillion hyperscaler.
• Core cloud infrastructure is interchangeable, so CSPs will battle over industry clouds.

You can read all about them here.