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 The global end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 20.7 per cent to total $591.8 billion in 2023, up from $490.3 billion in 2022, a Gartner report said on Monday.

This is higher than the 18.8 per cent growth forecast for 2022.

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is forecast to experience the highest end-user spending growth in 2023 at 29.8 per cent.

"Current inflationary pressures and macroeconomic conditions are having a push and pull effect on cloud spending. Cloud computing will continue to be a bastion of safety and innovation, supporting growth during uncertain times due to its agile, elastic and scalable nature," said Sid Nag, Vice President Analyst at Gartner.

The Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) will see the most significant impacts from inflation due to staffing challenges and the focus on margin protection.

However, both segments will still see continued growth, with Gartner forecasting 23.2 per cent growth for PaaS and 16.8 per cent for SaaS in 2023.

"Cloud migration is not stopping. IaaS will naturally continue to grow as businesses accelerate IT modernisation initiatives to minimise risk and optimise costs. Moving operations to the cloud also reduces capital expenditures by extending cash outlays over a subscription term, a key benefit in an environment where cash may be critical to maintain operations," explained Nag.

Despite growth, profitability and competition pressures, cloud spending will continue through perpetual cloud usage.

"Once applications and workloads move to the cloud they generally stay there, and subscription models ensure that spending will continue through the term of the contract and most likely well beyond. For these vendors, cloud spending is an annuity - the gift that keeps on giving," Nag noted.