The global population of cloud native developers is over 21 million, but headcount is only part of the story. Artificial intelligence is changing what these developers build and how open source projects get started.
New research provides numbers on this shift. The latest State of Cloud Native Development report from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and SlashData Ltd. counts more than 21 million practitioners or 41% of developers worldwide. However, according to Bob Killen (pictured right), director of technical program management at CNCF, that number likely misses out on many people who rely on cloud-native infrastructure without knowing it.
“The big thing is that there may be a significant number of them being undercounted,” Killen said. “Because there are a lot of people who are essentially using cloud-native applications without even realizing it.”
Killen and Liam Bollmann-Dodd (left), senior market research consultant at SlashData, spoke with theCUBE’s Rebecca Knight at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the state of the art in cloud native development, the adoption of AI, the burden on open source maintainers, and the shift toward cost discipline. (*Disclosure below.)
The introduction of AI sets cloud-native developers apart from the crowd
The most striking finding of the report concerns AI. About 75% of cloud-native developers use AI in some form, compared to only about 55% of other developers, Bollmann-Dodd found. The gap reflects a broader trend of agentic AI pushing Kubernetes into a second act.
“That’s a huge difference,” said Bollmann-Dodd. “So when you go cloud native, you, your business and your personal stack can leverage AI in all its forms.”
Caregivers are faced with a flood of AI code
The same wave of AI is putting a strain on the people who keep the ecosystem running. Sustainability dominated the Maintainer Summit before KubeCon, as maintainers face a flood of pull requests, often generated by agents, Killen explained.
“How can we as caregivers keep up with the flood of PRs, issues, and the like?” Killen said. “Especially when a lot of them are, quite frankly, just sloppy. And the really frustrating thing is that they’re just good enough.”
Cost discipline is the next change. According to Bollmann-Dodd, financial operations practices will follow rising cloud bills and cloud-native developers will soon closely manage their model and token spending.
“I think token maxing is dead and will stay dead forever,” Bollmann-Dodd said. “And I think it’s going to matter a lot more to how you spend your money and your tokens.”
Here’s the full video interview, part of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA:
(*Disclosure: The Linux Foundation sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither the Linux Foundation nor other sponsors have editorial control over the content of theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
Photo: SiliconANGLE
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