The physical parts of a computer that you can touch. Like the engine, wheels, and body of a car - the actual components that make it work.
Your computer's screen, keyboard, memory chips, and processor are all hardware components.
Hardware is not a single cloud service; it refers to the physical components (servers, CPUs, RAM, disks, network gear) that cloud providers own and operate. Cloud services like virtual machines and storage are built on top of this underlying hardware.