Cloud computing giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google are getting a greater foothold in the Australian market and could soon dominate, according to analyst firm Telsyte .

The firm has forecast that by 2018, Australian companies will spend up to $650 million on cloud infrastructure services, ­enabling them to use massive data centres here or abroad to perform complex computing tasks or store data. The figure is more than ­double the $305 million spent this year, as more companies become used to the idea of sending data off their premises and adopt ­the services.