Data from Synergy Research Group shows that global public cloud sales hit $544B in 2022, a record high despite tech layoffs and the current economic downturn.  The firm predicts that the public cloud will maintain its momentum and reach $1T by 2026.  More:  John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research, attributes this growth to cloud services, stating that “service growth continues to outpace the infrastructure market.”  Synergy research expects public cloud sales to double by 2027.  Currently, the biggest cloud players in the public cloud market are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce.  The cloud market segment experiencing the most growth in 2022 was IaaS and PaaS, with a 29% increase YoY led by AWS, Microsoft, and Google.  According to Synergy, public cloud providers collectively spent $120B on data center infrastructure in 2022, up 13% YoY. Additionally, the firm predicts that the leading cloud companies will increase their data centers by 50% and will expand the capacity of their data center networks by more than 65%.