Raul Katz, President, Telecom Advisory Services, New York Juan Jung, Senior Economist, Telecom Advisory Services, Madrid Natasha Beschorner, Senior Manager, Public Sector Public Policy, Amazon Web Services, Asia Pacific and Japan Peter J. Morgan, Senior Consulting Economist and Advisor to the Dean, Asian Development Bank Institute John Beirne, Principal Economist, Asian Development Bank Dil B. Rahut, Vice-Chair of Research and Senior Research Fellow, Asian Development Bank InstituteCloud Computing Policies and Their Economic Impacts in Asia and the PacificbriefpolicyKey Points • The economic impact of cloud computing on middle- and high-income economies in Asia and the Pacific is sizable. For 2023, its contribution to the economies of Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Viet Nam ranged from 0.25% to 2.23% of gross domestic product (GDP). The marginal economic impact of cloud adoption is greater for countries with higher cloud penetration resulting from cloud-enabling government policies. • Government policies promoting cloud adoption not only impact the level of government effectiveness but also have positive spillover effects on the rest of the economy. • Three sets of policies, are critical for stimulating the migration of government systems to the cloud: (i) an explicit “cloud first” policy for government, combined with a competitive cloud services industry model, and an effective cloud procurement mechanism; (ii) policies that allow data storage and processing beyond a country’s borders, including for the majority of government data categories; and (iii) a level of cybersecurity regulations, procedures, and capabilities, aligned with international standards. If middle-income countries in the region upgrade their cloud policy frameworks to the most advanced level that would boost their GDP growth by 0.5% to 0.7% in 2024–2028.• These policies should be complemented by other initiatives, such as the promotion of fixed broadband access, and measures to drive digital skills development.No. 2024-1 (January)© 2024 Asian Development Bank InstituteISSN 2411-6734DOI: https://doi.org/10.56506/RDQI5446This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.1. IntroductionIn recent years, cloud computing has become an essential tool for the delivery of IT-based services. With these technological advances, interest in identifying the economic effects of cloud computing has increased, although evidence is still scarce and fragmented. This policy brief describes original research that estimates the macroeconomic impact of cloud adoption for 11 countries in Asia and the Pacific—Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Cloud computing is defined as on-dem...
