After a not-so-happy couple of years of a bear market, cloud computing stocks are so back in 2024. As artificial intelligence (AI) hype ratchets up, tech has been fast on the rise in the first two months of the year.

But in reality, cloud software never really went anywhere. Throughout the last couple of years of heightened investor worry, global spending on cloud computing actually kept rising. And according to researcher , end-user spending on cloud services is expected to home in on $680 billion in 2024, up from an estimated $411 billion in 2021.

While generative AI has captured the spotlight for over a year now, "traditional" cloud services are actually still increasing, too. And with all of these new use cases, the need to monitor and secure all those IT processes is growing alongside them. That's why chip design companies like Broadcom just completed its mega-merger with the big cloud software management business VMware, and why networking hardware giant Cisco Systems has submitted a bid to purchase Splunk to bet on cloud and network monitoring services.

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Source Fool.com