Highlights from the Cloud Conference 2022

Cloud Conference Returns for the Fourth Year

Held on 22 February 2022 at One Farrer Hotel as a hybrid event with 102 in-person participants and another 139 virtual attendees, the fourth Cloud Conference was themed “Innovating Digital Services on Cloud” to give focus to cloud computing’s critical role in Singapore’s continued aspiration to grow and innovate despite the pandemic.

The pandemic has fast-forwarded cloud adoption and compressed the adoption curve from years to months. Coupled with acceleration of transformation journeys by the government and enterprises to provide better citizen and customer experience, cloud services will be foundational in creating innovative digital solutions quickly and efficiently.

Speaking at the Conference, Mr Alvin Tan, Minister of State for Trade & Industry, and Culture, Community and Youth, cited IMDA’s SMEs Go Digital Programme, which has supported over 78,000 SMEs on their digitalisation journey, as a resource. Additionally, he urged Singapore-based companies to leverage Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) to grow their business and adopt cloud services.

He elaborated, “Singapore’s DEAs aim to facilitate seamless end-to-end trade of digital technologies and services such as cloud services, mobile applications and AI.” Currently, Singapore has three DEAs with Chile, New Zealand and, more recently, Britain. Singapore will also be signing a fourth one with South Korea sometime later.

In her address, SCS Immediate Past President Dr Chong Yoke Sin noted that the pandemic had led most enterprises to prioritise investments in digital infrastructure resiliency. “Cloud technologies will be pervasive, not just popular,” she said. “With over 85% of organisations embracing cloud-first or cloud-native principles by 2025, digital and product teams will use architectural principles and capabilities to take advantage of the cloud environment’s inherent capabilities.”

SCS Cloud Computing Chapter President Dr Anton Ravindran added, “The most compelling benefit of the cloud is that it lowers adoption costs, facilitates co-creation and has transformation value in driving innovation,” he said. “By making AI accessible, cloud is rapidly democratising AI. Cloud has also become a force multiplier for AI and other emerging technologies such as blockchain. But to fully leverage the cloud, we need skills and talent.”