Cloud services and infrastructure have grown so ubiquitous and proven so useful that organizations no longer have much of a choice about adopting them. These days, leaders no longer question whether to migrate to the cloud, according to new findings from Rackspace and Google Cloud. Rather, they want to know how to use the technology to fuel innovation, efficiency and growth.

That’s the key finding in a new whitepaper, “What Is the Future of Compute?” Through Coleman Parkers Research, Rackspace and Google Cloud polled more than 1,400 IT executives around the world. Regardless of geography – the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East – the companies found that organizations are implementing cloud at a rapid pace.

To that point, more than half (51%) of survey respondents said 100% of their applicable infrastructure now resides in the cloud. Almost half (49%) said they plan to move more of their workloads into the cloud as soon as possible. Of note is that no respondent said they would keep all infrastructure on-premises forever.

The numbers Rackspace and Google Cloud uncovered mesh with projections from various research firms. Gartner, for example, says the cloud market grew 23% to $323.3 billion over the past year. Gartner analysts also say cloud will see a compound annual growth rate of 18%. In 2022, the dollar figure will rise to $331.2 billion.

Speaking of public cloud, more than two-thirds of respondents told Rackspace and Google Cloud they now support their compute workloads with public cloud, colocation and managed hosting services. Sixty-three percent of IT leaders surveyed said they use public cloud. These investments represent as much as 40% of most IT budgets, Rackspace and Google Cloud discovered. Meanwhile, 66% of respondents said they use private cloud. That investment accounts for 30% of the budget.

Most Popular Public Cloud Providers

Which cloud vendors do respondents use? Mostly they turn to Google Cloud for infrastructure, according to findings from Rackspace and Google Cloud. That figure came in at 28%, followed by Microsoft Azure (24%), Amazon Web Services (23%) and VMware (20%). Other providers – Oracle, IBM, Alibaba – got a 6% showing. Rackspace, of course, partners with Google Cloud, Azure, AWS and VMware.

Over the next three years, the IT leaders polled expect those numbers to shift somewhat. To that end, the “other” category will move up a point to 7%. Google Cloud infrastructure adoption will drop one point to 27%. Azure and AWS will both remain steady, per respondents’ input.

Along similar lines, respondents expect their infrastructure spending over the next 12 months will include on-site data centers (55%), managed hosting (52%), public cloud (51%) and colocation (34%). However, 60% of respondents also said they envision not owning a data center in the next five years.

When it comes to what’s driving cloud adoption, IT leaders pointed to three trends: business growth (49%), efficiency (44%) and better security (40%). Other influencing reasons related to customer experience, agility improvement, and the need to reduce or restructure costs.

Customer Experience

Customer experience comes as little surprise. The topic dominates conversation these days. It’s no shock, then, that respondents told Rackspace and Google Cloud they view public cloud services as core to innovation. Just more than two-thirds (64%) said public cloud lets them expand their products and services. One-half (51%) said public cloud allows them to upgrade customer experience and ease of use. And 47% said public cloud gives them the chance to offer personalization that enhances the customer journey.

Rackspace’s Jeff DeVerter

For channel partners, all these statistics offer guidance. Specializing in cloud will keep you on the cutting edge of technology change. IT will lead the way. Jeff DeVerter, chief technology evangelist at Rackspace, agreed.

“Driven in large part by the power of the cloud, today’s technology landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace, while IT is penetrating all areas of the organization,” DeVerter said. “In this environment, IT leaders have the power to help companies and organizations see around corners to solve both their short-term and long-term business challenges and provide critical guidance in the areas of business growth, security, efficiency, and customer experience.”