Cloud computing is enabling everything from biological research to registering for political elections, writes the New York Times's Bits Blog.
Mark De Pristo, a vice president at SynapDx, tells the Times that without the cloud, his company, which is searching through genetic data for connections to autism, would need $1 million and more people to conduct its work. Instead, SynapDx spends $25,000 a month on its computing power and employs some 22 people, who only need laptops and an Internet connection.
More and more services rely on the cloud, the Times notes, from Pinterest to registering for local elections in Nigeria
"The biggest events in the world, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the big reality shows, all use the cloud" for their online services, Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon Web Services, tells the Times. NASA, it adds, used AWS to broadcast the Mars Lander, and Netflix runs on Amazon's cloud.
Other companies like Microsoft and Google also offer cloud services, and the Times notes that some 70 million Nigerians signed up for local elections using the Google cloud.
"Historically, we've been in a world where computing was a scarce resource. Now it is moving to being an abundant resource," Greg DeMichillie, the director of product management for Google's public cloud, says. "Anybody who claims to have a crystal ball about where this is heading is kidding themselves."