Cloud as a catalyst for innovation in government
Experts from SAS, a data and AI technology company, explain how cloud computing is transforming government operations by enhancing efficiency, enabling AI-driven innovation and breaking down data silos – helping agencies meet their goals while optimising costs
As governments around the world strive to operate more efficiently while modernising and improving service delivery, many are turning to cloud computing as a strategic enabler.
The shift from on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based solutions is unlocking a range of benefits, from cost savings to enhanced data-sharing and collaboration. For forward-thinking government leaders, additional value lies in cloud’s ability to accelerate the integration of transformative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), which is a priority for governments across the world.
“Governments historically have had their storage on-premises and that is typically a capital budget item,” explains Jennifer Robinson, global strategic advisor for SAS’ public sector practice. “But a lot of governments are moving toward cloud, and many are using a hybrid approach.”
This transition means a shift from a capital to an operational expense, which can be a significant advantage for cash-strapped government agencies, allowing them to manage their budgets more flexibly, avoid large upfront costs, and generate additional savings through efficient management.
Data sharing
Increasingly, the benefits of cloud go beyond just the financials. Crucially, cloud adoption is also helping to break down data silos by centralising data storage and access for different departments or teams within an organisation. Improved data-sharing has been identified as key to tackling major challenges that are common across governments, such as boosting economic growth, reducing carbon emissions and improving healthcare.
“Governments have typically been plagued with silos of data, where you have different departments or agencies within a government holding on to information and not sharing it with their peers,” says Robinson. “And what we see is that cloud is an opportunity to be able to do better data sharing. And one thing that we have seen with governments is that data sharing becomes an opportunity to foster communication across departments and to be able to tackle problems in new and refreshing ways.”
This improved data sharing and collaboration sets the stage for the integration of advanced technologies like AI. “If you’re able to have your solutions deployed in the cloud, then what comes with that is the ability to deploy solutions far more quickly,” explains Lindsay Marshall, product marketing manager at SAS. “And therefore, the speed at which your organisation can innovate is dramatically increased.”
Robinson adds that cloud-based platforms help to manage the entire AI and data lifecycle efficiently and consistently.
“For organisations that want to move towards enterprise-wide AI through the use of a platform, having that on the cloud means that access across your organisation is facilitated,” she says.
Dump the technical debt
Beyond speed, cloud also frees governments up from managing the effort associated with maintaining on-premises solutions. “If your operational systems and your data and AI solutions are deployed and managed in the cloud, then your organisation is not having to administer that technical debt in-house,” says Marshall.
This is a key advantage, especially with global skills shortages in critical areas such as data, AI and security.
Marshall notes that leading cloud solutions offer significant benefits over on-premise options. These include advanced security features at multiple levels, for example, including system security, access controls, auditing, and compliance certifications, ensuring improved protection and compliance with industry best practices.
Avoiding the ‘messy middle’
There are key fundamentals to consider to help governments make the shift to cloud-based solutions a success. One common obstacle we see is the “messy middle” phase, says Marshall, where organisations struggle to optimise costs, establish governance and upskill their teams.
“A lot of companies tend to get stuck within this middle phase,” she explains. “But those that are able to move on can reach the third phase, which is ‘the promised land’ and where you’re seeing the value, maximising on that, and then you’re also preserving that value.”
To navigate this transition effectively, Marshall recommends a structured approach. First of all, she says, organisations need to consider their data management and how they’re going to prepare and manage data effectively through measures such as data cleansing and integration.
She also emphasises that data privacy and security must be integral to planning, and that a regulatory compliance strategy should be developed to ensure government agencies adhere to relevant regulations and standards.
“Then they need to look at the investment from a training and an education point of view,” she says. “And that applies not only to any analytical solution, but AI more generally, where you need to ensure your employees are able to build their AI literacy and their AI skills.”
Human productivity, cloud efficiency
A recent productivity study by The Futurum Group compared SAS’s Viya platform with selected competitive and non-commercial offerings and showed the benefits of cloud-enabled infrastructure. It found that SAS Viya delivered more than four times greater productivity across the full data and AI lifecycle of managing data, building models and generating insights.
Further, these benefits applied to a variety of tasks. SAS Viya was 16 times more productive in data engineering tasks such as accessing, preparing and governing data and 3.5 times more productive in data science tasks such as building, optimising and validating models. Crucially, business analysts and other non-technical staff were found to be able to complete 86% of data lifecycle tasks using SAS Viya.
A previous performance study also highlighted the importance of the efficiency of tools themselves, finding that SAS Viya ran 30 times faster. When training a model on a dataset with over 300 million unique data elements, Viya delivered results in under 12 minutes compared to other solutions which ran for hours without yielding results.
This level of productivity and accessibility is crucial for governments looking to maximise the value of their cloud and AI investments. As Robinson emphasises: “It’s not just about convenience and efficiency of your staff. Everybody needs to be assessing the software that they acquire and the platforms that they use in light of their cloud spend, because if you have a more efficient platform – in this case a data and AI platform – you’re going to be able to minimise your cloud spend because it’s computing faster and it’s delivering results faster.”
By embracing cloud-enabled solutions, governments can accelerate innovation, improve collaboration and optimise their technology investments – all while delivering better services to citizens.
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