Amazon's Cloud Keeps Growing Despite Fears of NSA Spying

When former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was conducting digital surveillance on a massive scale, many feared for the future of cloud computing. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated that Snowden’s revelations could cost U.S. cloud companies $22 billion to $35 billion in foreign business over the next three years, and countless pundits predicted that American businesses would flee the cloud as well. People would prefer to run software and store data on their own computers, the argument went, rather than host their operations atop outside services potentially compromised by the NSA.

But it looks like the cloud industry is still growing. And in very big way.

The world’s largest cloud computing services — services where you can run software and store data without buying your own hardware — are run by Amazon, and according to a new study from independent researcher Huan Liu, Amazon’s operation grew by a whopping 62 percent over the past two years. What’s more, the study shows that growth has been steady since June 2013, when the Snowden revelations first hit the news. In fact, there’s been a surge since December of last year.