The global cloud services market is expected to more than double to $148.8 billion by 2014 from $68.3 billion in 2010, as information technology penetrates into new areas, KPMG forecast in a report released at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum on Tuesday.

Cloud services refer to the process of sharing resources such as hardware, development platforms and software over the Internet. These resources are accessed mostly on a pay-per-use or subscription basis.

Sectors such as government, healthcare and education, which were largely underpenetrated due to high capital requirements, would benefit the most as cloud services provide them the socio-economic reach they had lacked for ages, the firm said.

"Emerging leaders like India and China are leveraging demographics and technology," Kumar Parakala, head of IT advisory, KPMG in India, Europe and Middle East, said. "Increased adoption of the cloud services could further strengthen their position to compete with the developed world and filling the economic and development void."

However, challenges such as security, privacy of data and disaster recovery would be addressed before cloud services become the utilities they have been envisoned to be, it said.