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According to the latest announcement from the European Commission, three investigations will be launched into cloud-computing services under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Among them is an assessment of whether Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure should be designated as gatekeepers.
Although the scale, user base, and market position of these cloud services do not yet fully meet the DMA’s formal criteria for gatekeeper status, regulators argue that AWS and Azure may nonetheless function as crucial intermediaries between businesses and consumers — a role significant enough to warrant investigation.
Another market inquiry will evaluate whether the DMA can effectively address practices that may undermine competition and fairness within Europe’s cloud-computing sector. At present, EU-based cloud providers lag far behind their U.S. counterparts in competitiveness, a disparity that could place considerable pressure on Europe’s aspirations for digital cloud sovereignty.
The Commission emphasized that cloud computing forms the backbone of numerous digital services and is vital to the advancement of artificial intelligence technologies. To foster innovation, trust, and Europe’s strategic autonomy, cloud services must operate in an environment that is fair, open, and competitive.
Should the investigations conclude that AWS and Azure meet the DMA’s criteria for core platform services with gatekeeper characteristics, these cloud services will be added to the list of products and platforms for which Amazon and Microsoft have already been designated as gatekeepers. (Both companies currently hold gatekeeper status for certain services, but cloud computing is not yet included and therefore has not been subject to the strictest obligations.)
The Commission is also gathering information from market participants to determine whether the DMA’s existing obligations are sufficient to address anti-competitive or otherwise unfair practices within the cloud sector. The inquiry will cover a wide range of issues, including interoperability barriers, restricted or limited access to enterprise-user data, bundling of cloud services, and potentially unfair contractual terms.
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