Your 20-second brief:

• SaaS versatility: Businesses in a variety of industries leverage cloud platforms to optimize operations, reduce costs, and ensure sustainability.
   
• AI at the forefront: Predictive analytics and intelligent data processing are reshaping how businesses make decisions, enabling faster, smarter, and greener outcomes.
   
• Quantum potential: The rise of quantum computing is set to redefine data processing, cybersecurity, and machine learning, fostering innovation across industries.
   
• Enhanced collaboration: Technologies like edge computing and blockchain ensure transparent, ethical, and traceable supply chains, addressing both compliance and consumer demands.
   
• Green cloud: Sustainable cloud practices, including renewable energy adoption, are aligning with global regulatory standards and business priorities.

In the span of a decade, cloud computing has transformed from a simple data storage solution into a central force in digital transformation, causing paradigm shifts across industries.

In the food and beverage (F&B) industry, cloud platforms allow companies to manage complex supply chains, ensuring that production schedules and inventory levels align with fluctuating demands. In distribution, cloud-based applications & blockchain allow for real-time tracking of transactions and monitoring of stock levels to ensure efficient restocking while in the fashion industry, we are seeing greater transparency from sourcing to finished product.

In this blog, we will explore the emerging cloud computing trends ready to impact industries in 2025 and beyond. As AI tools continue to develop at an exponential rate, cloud platforms driven by predictive analytics, automated solutions, and intelligent data processing will be at the forefront of any business looking to make faster, smarter, and greener decisions in the future.

Versatility at the heart

Software as a service (SaaS), allows businesses to benefit in multiple ways.

• Scalability helps meet fluctuating demands, ensuring businesses can handle peak loads without additional investment in infrastructure.
   
• Cost savings are guaranteed by removing the need for physical IT infrastructure, reducing capital expenditure.
   
• Flexibility guides innovation and adaptation with minimal downtime, enabling businesses to pivot operations as needed.

In the food and beverage (F&B) sector, platforms like Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage are transforming supply chains through machine learning integration and inventory management. AI algorithms analyze production data to adjust ingredient quantities and quality metrics in real-time which ensures consistent product standards and regulatory compliance while avoiding overproduction. Similarly, by forecasting demand, businesses can both prevent stockouts and reduce waste, striking a balance between customer needs, operational costs, and sustainability goals.

A global leader in sustainable aquaculture feed solutions partnered with Fortude to implement Infor CloudSuite across 17 production facilities in multiple countries. This migration allowed for centralized data management & the integration of cloud ERP systems helped the company work toward its digital transformation goals.

The versatility of SaaS extends beyond F&B and animal nutrition to industries like retail, where cloud-based POS systems enable seamless scalability during peak shopping seasons and manufacturing, where SaaS-integrated MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) monitor production, energy consumption, and equipment health.

Where limits are redefined

As SaaS computing evolves to embrace more advanced paradigms, quantum computing is emerging as a transformative frontier. By harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics, quantum computing delivers unprecedented speed and power, redefining what’s possible in solving complex challenges.

• Accessible innovation: Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS) democratizes access to quantum capabilities, enabling businesses to experiment with advanced algorithms via cloud platforms. This eliminates barriers for innovation, particularly for smaller organizations.
   
• Enhanced data processing: Quantum systems excel at tasks like supply chain optimization, molecular simulations, and cryptographic advancements.
   
• Smarter machine learning: By training models faster and more accurately, quantum computing accelerates machine learning.
   
• Optimized resources: Hybrid architectures allocate routine tasks to classical systems while reserving quantum power for intensive computations, ensuring cost efficiency and maximizing performance.

Quantum computing, though still developing, is expected to see significant advancements by 2030, driving innovation across industries and redefining how we solve complex challenges.

Connectivity at the core

Cloud technologies are also synonymous with collaboration and this is redefining how industries operate, fostering improved communication and transparency across supply chains. In the fashion industry, where complex, global supply chains are the norm, the intersections of these technologies are driving transformative change.

Edge computing is tasked with bringing data processing closer to where it’s actually happening — right at the “edge” of the network instead of relying solely on a distant cloud server. By processing data nearby, it cuts down on the distance data has to travel, which significantly lowers latency and saves bandwidth. Unlike traditional cloud computing that sends data to remote centers, edge computing allows for faster response times by handling important data locally.

When integrated with edge computing and cloud systems, blockchain technology adds another layer of reliability and traceability to supply chains. By creating tamper-proof records, blockchain ensures data integrity and transparency, addressing consumer demand for ethical and sustainable products.

This coordination guarantees:

• Transparent supply chains: Edge computing processes real-time data locally, enabling immediate updates on stock levels, production, and supply chain changes. Blockchain records and authenticates this data, creating a secure trail that ensures every stage of the supply chain is traceable, to secure both regulator and consumer approval.
   
• Ethical sourcing and verification: Blockchain tracks and authenticates the origins of raw materials, ensuring compliance with ESG standards and providing verifiable proof of sustainable practices. Edge computing complements this by updating sourcing data in real-time as materials move through the supply chain, ensuring accuracy and responsiveness.
   
• Comprehensive sustainability reporting: By linking production data from edge devices to blockchain systems, companies can generate detailed reports on their environmental impact. This interconnected system helps brands comply with sustainability regulations, such as the EU’s digital product passport (DPP) requirements, while reinforcing their commitment to transparency and ethical practices.

Driving key decisions

The cloud does not operate on its own. By leveraging big data and analytics, it empowers businesses to drive decisions that are:

• Accelerated: AI-driven analytics quickly process vast datasets, delivering actionable insights that enable critical decisions to allow businesses to respond promptly to emerging trends.
   
• Dynamic: AI analyzes resource usage patterns to enable precision auto-scaling in cloud platforms. This reduces costs by allocating only necessary resources to account for demand surges or off-peak times.
   
• Secure: Cloud-integrated AI systems monitor user activity and network traffic in real-time, using machine learning models to detect anomalies and secure sensitive data with minimal latency.
   
• Future-focused: By integrating predictive analytics into edge computing, the cloud ensures efficient inventory management, helping to both monitor stock levels and minimize waste.

Real-time data from edge devices allows companies to monitor inventory and production, while the cloud ensures scalability during peak seasons. This guides efficient and sustainable production, which is important in the dairy industry, where products have limited shelf life and need to be replenished continuously.

Infor’s lot traceability feature similarly provides a powerful combination of visual batch representation and robust search capabilities. This allows for backward tracing from end products to identify potentially contaminated raw materials. In case of contamination, recall lists can quickly be generated to identify affected end products. These procedures are indispensable for all F&B operators and for manufacturers of hypo-allergenic material in the fashion industry.

Security is never a compromise

The hybrid cloud model integrates private and public cloud environments, offering businesses control over sensitive data while benefiting from the scalability of public cloud resources. This dual-platform model is invaluable for regulated sectors like finance and healthcare, where data compliance and security are critical.

By storing sensitive data in private cloud environments, businesses meet strict regulatory requirements while leveraging the public cloud’s expansive resources for less sensitive workloads. This hybrid cloud model provides the flexibility to handle fluctuating workloads and reduce costs, as companies can scale into public cloud resources during peak times without investing in additional private infrastructure.

AI-powered hybrid cloud platforms also enhance security by monitoring real-time user activity and network traffic to identify anomalies that may signal threats. This enables immediate responses to potential risks to add a further layer of security to operations.

Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage demonstrates the power of the hybrid cloud model. Through embedded machine learning and AI, the platform helps F&B manufacturers both monitor and measure the composition and usage of raw materials, by cross-checking with desired levels of nutrients in end products. This guarantees freshness and quality while simultaneously helping producers adhere to regulatory requirements through mapping outcomes with information on regional and global safety standards stored on the cloud.

Greener and cleaner

Another Cloud trend that’s set to gain prominence is green cloud computing which integrates sustainable practices with cloud technology to enhance energy efficiency, cut carbon emissions, and conserve resources. As traditional data centers consume vast amounts of energy, cloud providers are prioritizing renewable sources of energy in order to achieve carbon neutrality. This shift aligns with regulatory frameworks like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which mandate transparency, sustainability and accountability across a company’s operations.

The push for green cloud solutions is more than regulatory compliance as it addresses consumer expectations, investor priorities, and climate change resilience. Green cloud solutions also reduce energy costs and exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices. This holistic approach supports key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which include metrics on affordable and clean energy.

Key takeaways

• Businesses should consider how the potential of Cloud technology can be strengthened with emerging technologies like quantum computing, AI, edge computing, and hybrid models that can work together to address a triple bottom line of people, profits, and the environment.
   
• Integrating AI into edge computing allows companies to process data locally and in real-time, which allows for quick customer feedback responses. By shifting data-heavy tasks to the cloud and adopting renewable-powered data centers, green cloud practices can see companies significantly reduce their carbon footprint. When integrated with the hybrid cloud model, this not only reduces environmental impact but ensures flexibility to scale as needed.

Fortude’s expertise in cloud solutions can support companies across industries in navigating this rapidly changing environment. Fortude has supported industry partners in their shift to the Cloud and helped them lay a foundation for digital transformation. Reach out to Fortude to learn how these upcoming developments in Cloud technology can be harnessed to drive transformation and growth across your business.