World’s Hottest Cloud and AI Vendors: #1 Palantir, #2 Google Cloud, #3 Oracle

Surging customer demand triggered by the AI Revolution is pushing growth rates among the Cloud Wars Top 10 to new levels with Palantir topping the latest Growth Chart at a stunning 70%, Google Cloud spiking to 48%, and Oracle continuing to accelerate and coming in at 44%.

In today’s tech-dominated world, it can be easy to overlook the explosive demand among business customers for cloud and AI services because so much attention continues to be focused on world-shaping tech vendors and in particular the hyperscalers and their unprecedented buildout of AI data centers:

• Will they boil Planet Earth and all of its inhabitants? No — the nascent fusion of the tech and energy industries will yield breakthrough innovations that today seem utterly impossible.
• Will this massive new generation of AI data centers drive local consumers to the poorhouse because of soaring energy bills? No — both legislation and enlightened self-interest will require the hyperscalers to pay for any and all disruptions in energy prices.
• Will these enormous facilities dehydrate the Earth? No — the closed-loop systems all of the hyperscalers are developing are minimizing water consumption.

Those and other melodramatic topics have in some ways overshadowed the real and very tangible benefits business customers are already reaping from today’s new generation of cloud and AI services. And in spite of all the swirling hysteria and hyperbole, we would all do well to remember that the enhanced business outcomes we’re witnessing today are only the beginning of what will unfold as the AI Economy takes hold across the globe over the next few years.

So, the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies whose products and services are enabling all of that innovation are in turn seeing growth rates climb as a result of rising demand for those high-impact innovations — and while I think the term “virtuous cycle” is often overused or misused, what we’re seeing here with the Cloud Wars Top 10 vendors and their customers is the essence of a virtuous cycle.

Now, I’m sure I will as always get some comments to the effect of “growth rates don’t mean anything unless you also factor in the size of the revenue base,” so let’s address that. I’m perfectly aware of the concept, and I suspect everyone who’s completed 8th-grade math is equally aware of that. The larger point I’m making with my ongoing emphasis on growth rates in the Cloud Wars is that out-of-whack revenue-growth numbers such as the ones posted very recently by Palantir at 70%, Google Cloud at 48%, and Oracle at 44% indicate that customers are seeing something unique and valuable and they are pouncing on it.

Quick quiz — which company would you rather be right now:

• AWS, with Q4 revenue of $35.6 billion and a very nice growth rate of 24%, or
• Google Cloud, with Q4 revenue of $17.7 billion and a soaring growth rate of 48%?

Interesting numbers: while AWS’s Q4 revenue of $35.6 billion is exactly 2X that of Google Cloud’s $17.7 billion, Google Cloud’s growth rate of 48% is exactly 2X that of AWS’s 24%. To me, that’s a no-brainer: despite AWS’s very strong Q4, Google Cloud pulled in almost as much incremental revenue in Q4 over Q3 — $2.5 billion — as did AWS with $2.6 billion.

So Google Cloud’s reached parity with AWS on quarter-to-quarter revenue growth, and overall is growing twice as fast — whose future do you like better?

And that’s precisely why at the beginning of this year I elevated Google Cloud to #1 on the Cloud Wars Top 10 and dropped AWS to #7: because Google Cloud is leading the way in defining and helping build the future. For more on that, please see

• Google Cloud Surges to #1 on Cloud Wars Top 10; Oracle Jumps to #2, Microsoft Slides to #3 and
• AWS Tumbles to #7 on Cloud Wars Top 10; SAP Up to #4, Palantir Soars from #10 to #5.

Okay, here’s the latest Cloud Wars Growth Chart, and I’ll be updating this in several weeks after the Q1 numbers are in from Google Cloud, Microsoft, SAP, Palantir, ServiceNow, and AWS.

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