Literature Review
Here you will find the relevant literature review for the Journalism Tech Alliance Inaugural Meeting on April 17
Market concentration in cloud services and its impact on investigative journalism
Cloud services are the backbone of the modern economy and information systems, indispensable for the provision of digital products and services, from social media to artificial intelligence (“AI”) models. Yet the cloud market is becoming more concentrated in the hands of three giant corporations as businesses and governments have moved their operations to the cloud, and advances in AI reinforce its importance. This article by Courtney Radsch & Karina Montoya explores the dynamics in the cloud sector that raise concerns about the concentration of power in a handful of dominant tech companies that have already forced journalism to adapt to a platform logic that constrains and shapes the political economy of news.
Effects of Cloud Market Concentration
The global cloud-services market, particularly for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), exhibits several symptoms of market concentration: domination by a small number of hyperscale cloud providers,1 network effects, economies of scale, and relatively high barriers to entry. The size and sophistication of the leading cloud providers offer considerable benefits to their customers, including tightly integrated development platforms, centralized security, and software services on their infrastructure. But the market concentration also reduces competition, amplifies the risks posed by cloud outages, and potentially creates a situation wherein massive market dependence on a handful of cloud providers might encourage them to assume business risks that would have to be borne by governments and major customers.
Who wins from the AI boom? A dive into the value chain
In their latest Enders Analysis report, Joseph Teasdale, Jamie MacEwan and Hamish Low explore how recent advances in 'Artificial Intelligence' have generated excitement, investment and improved valuations, on the plausible promise of greater efficiency in a range of areas, such as health and coding. It is still not clear who will profit from this boom. Currently, chip-maker NVIDIA is cleaning up, propelled by sales to model developers, also driving demand for cloud computing services.
Leverage in the AI value chain depends on differentiation and barriers to entry, which are high in the chips industry. AI services like chatbots have much lower barriers to entry, while deeper vertical integration of more stages of the value chain could shake things up.
Regulating Cloud Computing
The term “cloud computing” refers to the abstraction of infrastructure and computing resources traditionally managed by a customer to be instead managed by a third party, known as a “cloud provider.” Cloud computing services are now central to the economy. As companies continue to migrate their IT infrastructure needs to the “cloud,” they are placing great reliance on a small group of large tech companies; and cloud computing generates a growing share of those tech comp. Read the full TechREG® Chronicle March issue:
Generative AI: Differentiating disruptors from the disrupted
Generative AI has the potential not only to reshape key business operations but also to shift the competitive landscape across most industries. In its report, MIT Technology Review Insights explores how the technology has already started to affect various business functions, such as product innovation, supply chain logistics, and sales and customer experience. Companies are also beginning to see a positive return on investment (ROI) from the deployment of generative AI-powered platforms and tools.
Cloud services market study
Cloud computing is being rapidly adopted by businesses across the economy and has become an essential part of how digital services are delivered to consumers, including in the telecoms and broadcasting sectors. Ofcom has carried out a market study into the supply of cloud services in the UK to explore if these markets are working well and whether any regulatory action is required. This final report sets out Ofcom's findings and recommendations
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