Cloud computing has become synonymous with the tech renaissance of today’s digital transformation, an emblem of capability for modern business. As its presence in the market has rapidly swelled, however, cloud has long remained something of an enigma even to those aiming to leverage its value.

Promises of efficiency, agility, and the ability to tackle exponentially scaling data have all made cloud an attractive goal for organizations seeking a competitive edge, but the platform holds an even bigger opportunity than the potential for greater market share.

With the myriad technologies it enables through an environment designed for collaboration, cloud offers an unprecedented foundation for innovation.

“When I started I’m not sure I had any concept of how big this was going to be, and we’re just still at the beginning,” said Raejeanne Skillern (pictured), vice president of the Data Center Group and general manager of the Cloud Service Provider Platform Group at Intel Corp. “Every use case you see, all the [internet of things], all the business transformation — we’re just starting.”

As cloud objectives transition from adoption to more strategic integration, Intel is working with Amazon Web Services Inc. to build and deliver hybrid solutions for customers. With a decade of experience in public cloud, Skillern is leading the charge in capitalizing on the full scope of cloud’s potential.

Skillern sat down with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Raejeanne Skillern in our Women in Tech feature.

Riding the cloud wave

Despite periodic predictions of its bubble bursting, the cloud market has only continued to balloon as new use cases emerge for innovative cloud-enabled technologies like IoT and edge. When Skillern first joined Intel, cloud made up a relatively inconsiderable portion of Data Center Group revenue. Today, the technology is its primary contributor.

“In the first half of the year, [we] had a 43 percent a year revenue growth. This industry is booming,” Skillern said.

Cloud’s innate accessibility has enabled relatively even growth among companies at all sizes, with small companies gaining substantial market share against the leading organizations Intel has termed the “Super Seven“: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

“While a lot of big players are getting bigger, the market is really diversified. The Super Seven, the world’s largest, are growing fast, about 35 percent around the world. The next wave are growing almost as fast, about 27 percent,” Skillern stated.

A broad customer base means a spectrum of IT support needs, all demanded at the breakneck pace of cloud. “These cloud service providers are pushing me off the roadmap. They want more than we can deliver,” Skillern added.

Better together

To serve the wide spectrum of needs in its diverse customer base, AWS and Intel work together in maximizing the flexibility offered by cloud. Especially as the tide turns in favor of hybrid environments, Intel’s ability to build custom data centers is a natural fit for the enterprise multicloud needs AWS has recently dedicated itself to serving.

Intel’s strengths in both hardware and software, as well as its years of experience, enable the company to build tailored solutions that leverage all insights. Every workload demands a different technology capability, and Intel’s thousands of software and hardware “Cloud Ninja” engineers ensure customers won’t be stuck working with inefficient one-size-fits-all models.

“We have a unique ability to customize core computes, network, storage, [field-programmable gate arrays], purpose-built accelerators, and we can create custom [application-specific integrated circuits] for any one of our customers,” Skillern said.

The company maintains efficacy by working on site with businesses to engineer unique processes for all workloads and instance types.

“Whether it’s performance tuning and optimization or co-creating cloud services, up and down the stack, that’s where real innovation can happen. Two heads together, not just one. That’s why it’s so important for us to work with customers like Amazon, not just to customize one SKU, but many SKUs,” she said.

As cloud customers discover the benefit of hybrid infrastructure options, the line between competition and cooperation blurs for companies like Intel and AWS in favor of co-creation that exceeds the capabilities of either partner.

“There’s some friendly competition, but we actually get so much business by working with them too. It’s hard for me to say if they are competition or a partner; that’s the industry we live in,” Skillern said.

Keeping up with cloud

With so many use cases still to be defined in developing technologies like artificial intelligence and edge, Skillern firmly believes that this is only the beginning of cloud’s market transformation.

“When I look at my market modeling over the next five to 10 years, I always put a disclaimer: This does not comprehend what’s going to happen when we activate [and] billions of devices come online,” she said.

Intel is investing heavily in cloud’s uncharted frontier, working toward improvements in data storage and transfer. Its partnership with AWS has allowed both companies to discover these opportunities, with new tech like the DeepRacer machine learning car a testament to their combined ingenuity.

While Intel provides the data center ammunition, AWS makes the company more efficient with its challenging pace of innovation, Skillern pointed out.

“If we slow down, even for a bit, we’re going to get left behind. It’s a great, challenging partnership. I can guarantee there’s better innovation from Intel because of the opportunity to work with Amazon,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Intel Corp. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Intel nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE