#hyperscalers

#hyperscalers

How very "Here we go round the mulberry bush," right? Microsoft buys Anthropic's models; Anthropic runs Claude on Microsoft's Azure cloud; Anthropic buys Nvidia's chips; and both Microsoft and Nvidia invest in Anthropic. If that sounds like a big circle going round and round and back again... that's because it is. And honestly, it's making me dizzy.

Even as this trend has taken hold, the spread of the investment grade bond markets over treasuries, in aggregate, has gone from about 70 basis points to about 85 basis points today. I would anticipate that if the hyperscaler debt issuance theme continues, we could see spreads widen as much as 95 basis points, which is material when we're talking about a relatively low volatility market,

This year, these five "hyperscalers" have issued $121 billion in debt, including $27 billion alone to fund Meta's new data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, Seliger said in a research note dated November 17. Amazon also issued $15 billion in new debt on November 17. To put that $121 billion in perspective, it's more than four times the average level of debt ($28 billion) issued by these companies annually over the previous five years.

The question isn't 'why does Signal use AWS?' It's to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there's no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers.

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott does not see artificial intelligence as a threat to business software, but rather as an opportunity to increase the value of enterprise platforms. According to him, the future lies not in autonomous AI systems that render traditional software obsolete, but in close collaboration between AI models, hyperscalers, and integrated business solutions. In an interview with CNBC, McDermott explained that ServiceNow has aligned its strategy with collaboration with the three largest hyperscalers.

The glorious visit of US President Donald Trump to the British Isles last week came with promises of thousands of precious GPUs, with Nscale, Microsoft, Google, and more teaming up to build a giant datacenter within walking distance of my house. But is the Tech Prosperity deal really a portal to a bright future or will it suck us in?

Given that corporate IT relies heavily on cloud-based infrastructure and services delivered via the public cloud, access to the data held in the cloud is paramount. Should all mission-critical data be held on-premise? What roles should digital sovereignty and digital residency play in a corporate IT strategy? These are among the questions being discussed at Forrester's forthcoming Technology & Innovation Summit in London.

During Gartner's event, Palmer posited that Broadcom's VMware doesn't view hyperscalers as strategic partners and vice versa. AWS took issue with Broadcom disallowing AWS and its channel partners to resell VMware Cloud on AWS, telling CRN in May 2024 that it was "disappointed" by the news. Still, hyperscalers, including AWS, have remained interested in doing business with VMware end users "because they know over time they will convert you to 'proper cloud,'" Palmer said.

In recent years, the global conversation around cloud computing has shifted from a focus on technology to geopolitics. Data sovereignty, privacy, and control are now top concerns for enterprises outside the United States-especially across Europe, the UK, Asia, and Africa. Regulations and shifting political winds are prompting companies to reassess the risks of storing their data in the hands of foreign-most notably, American-companies.