Global edge computing market to hit $82B as AI deployments scale

For the streaming industry, the maturation of edge computing represents a critical shift in delivery architecture. As providers move beyond simple caching to running AI-driven analytics and transformation logic at the edge, the reliance on centralized clouds is diminishing. This transition is essential for reducing latency in interactive and live-streaming environments where every millisecond impacts user retention. Competitive pressure is mounting as early adopters among AI-mature enterprises integrate these low-latency capabilities into their stacks. Watch for high-bandwidth sectors like 8K streaming and cloud gaming to drive the next wave of infrastructure investment, particularly in regions where 5G rollout is outpacing traditional fiber.

The expansion of edge computing coincides with a broader shift in how major CDN and cloud providers package their service stacks. Per BlazingCDN (May 2025), infrastructure leaders like Cloudflare and Fastly are increasingly collapsing CDN, security, and edge compute into a single control plane to capture this growth. Cloudflare’s Workers platform, for instance, reportedly processed over 10 million requests per second globally as of early 2026. This consolidation makes it harder for streaming platforms to compare ‘apples-to-apples’ pricing as vendors bundle compute and security directly into delivery contracts.

Simultaneously, hyperscalers are aggressively defending their territory. According to Synergy Research Group (May 2026), AWS and Microsoft Azure together control roughly 52% of the cloud infrastructure market. While AWS remains the volume leader, Azure’s revenue in the 'Intelligent Cloud' segment rose 39% year-over-year at the end of 2025, largely fueled by its OpenAI partnership and enterprise AI integrations. This reflects a wider trend where AI-related cloud spending hit 19% of total infrastructure investment in 2026, up from just 8% in 2023.

European and Asian markets are also seeing localized growth due to tightening data residency requirements. External reporting from TechnologyChecker (April 2026) indicates that European enterprises are increasingly favoring providers that offer local data sovereignty guarantees, even as AWS expands capacity in key hubs like Frankfurt and Stockholm. In Asia, the rapid 5G rollout among mobile operators has enabled Cloudflare and competitors to rank consistently high in TTFB (Time to First Byte) benchmarks, with Cloudflare achieving first or second place across nearly 70% of the top 1,000 global networks as of mid-2026.