Colombia has consistently maintained its position in recent years as one of Latin America’s fastest-growing economies, unequivocally supported by a thriving and innovative business ecosystem.
The country’s economy grew by 1.9% in 2024, a growth that is to be maintained in 2025, with the Council of the Americas forecasting analyses set at 2.6%, well ahead of the regional average. This trend will also continue into 2026, when BBVA Research projects gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 3.2%, as well as lower interest rates and a decrease in inflation.
Although this economic expansion is pillared by significant increases in foreign direct investment, a booming tourism scene, and relative economic stability, it is also upheld by an ever-growing business sector, which influences both national and international economies.
The Economic Opening (Apertura Económica) commercial liberalization strategy was adopted by the Colombian government in 1990 as a way of modernizing the economy, expanding export offerings, integrating into international markets, and achieving macroeconomic stability. Through it, companies like Ecopetrol, Avianca Holdings, and Grupo Éxito have been consistently placed in Colombia’s top business rankings, with the latter two leveraging $1.7 billion and over $3.7 billion in revenue and net sales, respectively.
Regardless, positive economic predictions and 21st-century successes still leave room for growth. According to the National Department of Planning, Colombia must now embark on the promotion of digitalization and technological innovation, leveraging technology and data for the automatization of processes with the ultimate goal of boosting businesses’ scalability and capacities. This is especially imperative for the mining and manufacturing industries, which, in spite of contributing 3,93% and 11,54% of the country’s GDP, respectively, experienced recent declines in production.
In this context, cloud computing has emerged, allowing Colombian companies to scale their operations more efficiently, especially in sectors like finance- representative of around 15% of GDP- and retail- valued at over $41 billion USD– , where real-time data processing and storage solutions are critical, as signaled by the United States International Trade Administration (USITA).
The finance and retail sectors experienced particular growth in 2024, with 4,4% and 1,0% boosts in production, which suggests an opportunity to anchor cloud computing for both boosting struggling sectors and leveraging the potential of those that have experienced recent success.
For Colombia, this renewed partnership will focus on positioning companies for both national and international success via five key areas: Gen AI, security, an emphasis on financial services, cloud operations and modernization, and managed services.
Escala 24×7, a cloud initiatives accelerator and Premier Partner of Amazon Web Services (AWS), responded to this growing call for cloud adoption by establishing a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS, seeking to advance the adoption of cloud and generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) in Latin America.
“This agreement will allow us to bring more organizations in the region toward a more productive, efficient, and sustainable future. Together with Escala 24×7, we are transforming the way companies adopt the cloud and modernize their infrastructures,” noted Paula Bellizia, Vice President at AWS for Latin America.
“Companies across the region will be increasingly supported in their transition to cloud services through this agreement, which emphasizes flexible approaches to identifying their needs, establishing tailored proposals for implementation, guided experimentation periods, and a final production stage leading to widespread success,” noted Lina Arias, Regional Manager for the Andean region at Escala 24×7.
Colombia’s Ecosystem: Areas for Scalability
According to a recent study by FTI Consulting, cloud adoption in Colombia supports approximately $24.8 billion USD in additional GDP each year, under a total GDP baseline of $363 billion USD.
In the context of cloud computing’s influence and potential, the Colombian Ministry of Commerce calls on acceleration processes as essential keys to building sustainable scaling mechanisms for businesses, especially through the accompaniment of specialized entities that can provide fundamental insights for companies to unlock their potential.
The AWS infrastructure enables companies to scale through the flexibility of the cloud, which is conceptually infinite. Their clients, which traditionally used over-provision to guarantee operational capacities, can now appeal to the exact provisions they need, knowing they can instantly scale up or down along with their needs. In this way, costs are reduced, and they can more accurately meet user’s demands.
Solutions provided by AWS are tailored specifically to the regions in which the company operates, and for the case of Colombia, it offers local support, and the cost-effective infrastructure that the ecosystem urgently calls for.
Through their experience of over 12 years in the region, Escala 24×7 has enabled project implementation, providing support for companies from the consultory phase, to the evaluation, planning, maintenance and optimization stages. The company has twice been recognized by AWS as System Integrator of the Year for Latin America, in 2022 and 2023, thus consolidating itself as a leader in the AWS partner ecosystem.
Its commitment to advancing the region’s business scalability will allow the automatization of processes, operational efficiency, and adaptability to Latin America’s increasingly competitive market.
Virgin Mobile Latin America, a leading provider of mobile services in Latin America, expanded into the region in 2010 and appealed to emerging cloud technologies in 2013. It sought more speed and flexibility when deploying existing and new solutions and unifying its operations across Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. Since then, the integration of AWS technologies has been an essential component of the company’s ecosystem.
“Escala 24×7 helped us with its experience, gradually shedding light on the layers of darkness we faced due to lack of time and giving us a new level of visibility into our infrastructure,” stated Cristian Monges, LatAm Infrastructure Specialist at Virgin Mobile.
Virgin Mobile Latam subsequently implemented a Control Tower, through which they automate and manage the rest of the AWS services, thus establishing a faster and more secure governance framework. This approach allowed for the centralization and streamlining of operations in the three countries and the implementation of the FinOps methodology, which resulted in a 30% reduction in operational costs.
The transcendence of involving cloud services within the Colombian ecosystem extends beyond businesses, speaking to the widespread transformative potential of AWS and the crucial accompaniment of Escala 24×7.
Corporación Talentum, a Colombian NGO dedicated to providing social and digital transformations across the country, reduced its application deployment and project development times by 50% after its leveraging of AWS through Escala 24×7.
Its efforts, centered on developing technologies that support projects for education in rural areas, are naturally managed by a reactive infrastructure, which poses challenges to the stability and growth of its operations. Corporación Talentum faced technical gaps and cost overruns, for which they appealed to a cloud-based strategy, seeking to fulfill their commitment to clients and wider Colombian accessible education.
“Having a solid partner like Escala 24×7 allows us to convey security and feel relieved regarding our expansion strategies. Escala 24×7 provides us with safety, good practices, a well-aligned team, and excellent architecture. Their technical support and service integration allow us to create a healthy ecosystem,” explained Juan José Cardona, IT Manager at Corporación Talentum.
Currently, the NGO is looking to expand into international markets alongside its refreshed operations systems.
The impact of collaboration
The impact of AWS’ and Escala 24×7’s agreement is not limited to technological developments in Latin America. Through collaboration, they aim to achieve massive job creation, the development of innovative localized solutions, and the multiplicity of success cases across the region.
For Colombia, in particular, jobs supported by cloud adoption will increase by 64% by 2038, representing 2.3 million individuals. The country’s GDP will also be radically strengthened, both directly and indirectly, with a projected height of $28 billion USD from the GDP supported by cloud adoption.
And as for the scalability of Colombian businesses, already established as major players in international markets, the leveraging of cloud computing, and seizing the operational, logistical and economic benefits that AWS will bring inevitable benefits, propelling them into the innovation that the digital age calls for.
Environmental concerns, ever-present in both public and private discourse, are also at the forefront of this technological revolution for entrepreneurs. On average, 90 thousand metric tons of CO2 emissions will be avoided every year because of the cloud’s efficiency, a benefit especially relevant in Colombia, the second most biodiverse country in the world and home to 7.1% of the Amazon rainforest.
“Cloud done right” implies the strategic positioning of emerging technologies at the fingertips of Colombian businesses. With it, Escala 24×7 has not only established itself as the primary strategic partner of Colombian modernity-seeking entrepreneurs, but also the key bridge that connects environmental responsibility, economic prosperity, and entrepreneurial spirit.
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
