Computing · 2006
Cloud computing
Rent computing by the hour instead of buying servers.
Amazon Web Services launched S3 storage and EC2 virtual servers in 2006. Startups could now scale instantly, and the cloud now hosts most of the world's online services.
What it built on 3
What it led to 8
Related measurements
The dashed line marks when it first worked.
Share of people online Latest: 73.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data
Training compute of notable AI models Source: Epoch AI, Notable AI Models (CC BY 4.0)