As the cloud computing sector finds itself upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon Web Services Inc. Chief Executive Officer Adam Selipsky has a possible big win ahead of him: the potential of the supercloud, the term used to describe an abstraction layer above and across hyperscale infrastructure (see our exclusive re:Invent preview with Selipsky here). 

Walmart Inc. has already committed to building a supercloud, and a rush of other companies are sure to follow. No doubt we’ll be hearing more on this subject, as well as how AWS continues to serve as a cloud leader to drive market direction forward, at this year’s nearly week-long re:Invent 2022 conference, where attendees will dig into the next decade of transformative tech.

TheCUBE will be live on the ground from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, covering the latest AWS and broader marketplace enterprise computing innovations, as well as talking with startups partnering with AWS and presenting insights during the AWS Executive Summit. Coverage will include interviews with key AWS executives, industry partners, customers and analysts as theCUBE separates the signal from the noise during one of the tech industry’s signature events of the year. (* Disclosure below.)

The new data reality

From deep-space communication to infrastructure equipment and data gathering, space technology continues to advance. This topic made headlines during last year’s AWS re:Invent conference, as Amazon.com Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels addressed how AWS’ technology is being utilized in outer space. But other highlights on Earth were equally exciting, including the launch of compute intensive, AI-powered custom chips; the importance of AWS ecosystem partners; and how AWS was reshaping the definition of cloud.

Almost one year later — exactly one month and one day prior to the opening kick-off of this year’s re:Invent — Amazon announced the latest in its multibillion-dollar Project Kuiper initiative, which aims to build and deploy more than 3,200 internet satellites in orbit.

“This new satellite production facility will significantly expand our manufacturing capacity as we approach launch and deployment, and it brings us another step closer to delivering on our mission to connect unserved and underserved communities around the world,” Rajeev Badyal, the vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, said in a release. 

It’s perhaps projects such as Project Kuiper that will fuel much of the excitement at re:Invent 2022, amid what many analysts expect will be a challenging 2023. Last year, AWS became a $64 billion revenue run rate business, with 39% growth year over year. This year, Amazon’s business felt the impact of multiple economic factors, which slowed its year-on-year rate of revenue growth.

Virtually every sector of the tech industry is having to reset its expectations, including the cloud segment. AWS was able to break the law of large numbers and actually accelerate growth in 2021. But according to Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE and chief analyst at Wikibon, SiliconANGLE’s research affiliate, 2022 has been a different story. 

“AWS especially saw progressively increasing growth rates throughout 2021 for each quarter. Now that trend has reversed in 2022 for AWS,” Vellante said in a recent Breaking Analysis column, proving that even the cloud is not immune to the seesaw economy.

During a conference call in late October, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky attributed those numbers to broad-scale inflation, heightened fuel prices and rising energy costs, adding that Amazon was focused on delivering the best customer experience possible. “We aim to strike the right balance between investing for our customers for the long-term while driving operational efficiency improvements and accomplishing more with less,” he said.

Amazon is still recovering from its recent forecasting mistakes, according to Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc., but the picture is slowly improving.

“The economic headwinds don’t help overall, but AWS is still growing strong and keeping Amazon profitable overall,” he said. “Balancing costs, investment and growth will be key for Andy Jassy’s team in the fourth quarter, which is always a key one for Amazon.”

The re:Invent 2022 conference provides attendees with information and tools on how to do more with less, as well as information on how to chart a new course when innovation has never been more important.

Cloud computing transformational technology

During re:Invent, industry leaders from around the world will weigh in on cloud computing innovations as they bring big announcements and product launches to the conference floor. There are always surprises at re:Invent, but Amazon’s focus on innovation and the customer experience has already led to some transformational announcements over the past year. 

In late October, Amazon introduced a serverless edition of Amazon Neptune, its cloud-based graph database service, which is intended to ease the day-to-day work of administrators and help reduce cloud infrastructure costs. And considering the company’s efforts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its business by 2040, its plan to spend more than 1 billion euros over the next five years to expand its use of electric delivery vehicles in Europe was a big announcement.

What other transformational technologies will AWS feature during re:Invent 2022? The company promises that the conference will include a look at the latest innovations from AWS and the way it continues to push the boundaries of performance in the cloud.

A look back, and a look ahead

A quick look back at last year’s big milestone 10th anniversary conference, where AWS made a number of big announcements, the cloud giant unveiled new products and services that included migration tools, storage enhancements to developer solutions and much more. As a part of his Tuesday keynote in his first year as AWS chief executive, Adam Selipsky announced the launch of compute intensive, AI-powered custom chips.

John Furrier, theCUBE industry analyst, said at the time that there was “a whole other level of platform as a service that is coming out of this re:Invent.”

“If you are seriously writing software as an owner on the cloud and you want specific advantages of speed and performance, you are going to want the custom silicon that’s purpose-built for your application and write code to that stack,” he added.

Amazon itself expects big things ahead, declaring this to be an “inflection point.” The company says that since AWS pioneered cloud technology 15 years ago, it “has allowed what was once science fiction to become science fact.” 

“But this technology is not replacing humans; it is augmenting how we engage with the world,” Vogels wrote. “2022 will be an exciting year for technology, with it pushing all of us, and our planet, forward in the process.”

Selipsky will be back for round two as AWS chief executive during re:Invent 2022. And theCUBE will be on site to capture all of the breaking news and real-time analysis. You can follow theCUBE’s wall-to-wall coverage for firsthand insights.

TheCUBE event livestream

TheCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent runs Nov. 28-Dec. 1. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

SiliconANGLE also has analyst deep dives in our Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

Stay tuned for a complete list of expert guests to appear on theCUBE during our coverage of AWS re:Invent 2022.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for AWS re:Invent. Neither Amazon Web Services, the  main sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE