In 2012, the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) ranked Japan as the most cloud-ready country in Asia Pacific. Cloud Computing News reported that Japan’s position was unchanged from the previous year, when it had also come first.
The same ranking also showed how other economies compared on data privacy and related measures. New Zealand finished top on data privacy, level with Japan and South Korea, and top on data sovereignty, level with Singapore. That is why the index is often cited in discussions of privacy and information access in the region.
What the 2012 ranking found
The ACCA compared 14 economies. South Korea moved up to second place, passing Hong Kong and Singapore.
Australia fell three places to seventh. The reason given was a weak score for international connectivity: Australia scored 2.7, and only New Zealand scored lower. Japan scored the maximum 10.0 in that category, while New Zealand scored 1.3.
Thailand and Vietnam tied for last place. Thailand was bottom on data sovereignty, and Vietnam trailed on intellectual property protection.
China came tenth, down two places, despite a market widely seen as growing fast. Cloud Computing News cited a forecast that the Chinese cloud market would reach about US$18.6 billion by 2013. According to the report, the fall was attributed to constraints on growth, a lack of transparent security and data laws, and incentives that favoured local firms.
Why Japan came first
The index scored economies across policy, business and infrastructure measures, including broadband quality, intellectual property protection, data privacy and data sovereignty. Japan ranked near the top in almost all of these categories. The ACCA said Japan had the right mix of policies, business conditions and infrastructure to sustain cloud adoption.
For regional businesses, the ranking showed that cloud readiness depended on more than market size. China’s fall and Australia’s connectivity score both showed that national infrastructure and rules could hold back a market that otherwise looked attractive.
How Japan’s lead developed
Other assessments in the following years supported the ACCA’s finding. In March 2013, the software industry group BSA released a global scorecard that put Japan first for its legal and security environment for cloud computing. Australia, the United States, Germany and Singapore followed. The scorecard looked at cybersecurity and intellectual property protections, broadband capacity and alignment with international laws and standards.
The BSA’s results showed some weak spots in other countries. Singapore’s lowest score was for security, at 3.6, and South Korea scored poorly on cybercrime, at 4.8. Japan did well because it scored highly in every area. Thailand and Vietnam were again at the bottom, and Vietnam scored less than half of Japan’s total.
The US Department of Commerce reached a similar view. Its 2015 Top Markets Report for Cloud Computing ranked 20 export markets and placed Japan first. It said Japan was the leading cloud market in the Asia Pacific and Japan region. It also noted that the ACCA had named Japan the top cloud market for a third consecutive year in its Cloud Readiness Index, and that the government was committed to universal household broadband by the end of 2015.
Later US government material described Japan as ranked third globally in the Commerce Department’s report. It also said BSA ranked Japan second in its 2018 Global Cloud Computing Scoreboard. It credited modern laws, privacy legislation and extensive fibre deployment. IDC Japan estimated the country’s public cloud services market at US$6.0 billion in that period, up 27.2% on the previous year. It put the private cloud market at US$3.8 billion, up 40.6%.
That material also projected annual growth of about 20.4% for Japan’s public cloud market between 2018 and 2023, taking it to roughly US$15.4 billion in 2023. It linked growth in private cloud to rising adoption by small and medium-sized enterprises.
A 2024 Economist Impact study commissioned by Red Hat surveyed 375 business leaders across Asia Pacific. It found that 87% of Japanese executives said they had fully adopted cloud computing, the highest level of integration among the markets surveyed.