The Fee says AWS and Azure could fall beneath Europe’s hardest digital market guidelines as cloud infrastructure turns into central to AI and enterprise dependence
The European Fee has taken a big step towards bringing Amazon Internet Companies and Microsoft Azure beneath the Digital Markets Act, arguing that the 2 cloud platforms could perform as gatekeepers in Europe’s digital financial system regardless that they don’t meet the regulation’s normal numerical thresholds.
In a same-day preliminary discovering printed on 25 June, the Fee stated it had knowledgeable Amazon and Microsoft that their cloud computing providers must be designated as gatekeepers beneath the DMA. The choice will not be last. Each corporations can examine the case file and reply earlier than Brussels decides whether or not to impose the total set of obligations.
Cloud strikes to the centre of EU tech coverage
The Fee’s preliminary place on AWS and Azure marks a shift in how Europe views digital energy. Cloud providers are not seen solely as background infrastructure. They now underpin synthetic intelligence, public administration, finance, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and lots of the providers European residents use every single day.
Brussels argues that AWS and Azure act as necessary gateways between companies and prospects within the EU. That issues as a result of corporations that construct round one cloud ecosystem can face excessive switching prices, technical lock-in, and sensible limitations to interoperability with rival providers.
The Fee opened cloud market investigations in November 2025 to evaluate whether or not Amazon and Microsoft must be lined by the DMA regardless of falling beneath the usual thresholds for gatekeeper designation. These investigations additionally examined whether or not present DMA obligations are sturdy sufficient to take care of cloud-sector practices comparable to tying, bundling, restricted entry to information and obstacles to interoperability.
A preliminary discovering, not a last ruling
The authorized posture is necessary. Amazon and Microsoft haven’t but been lastly designated as cloud gatekeepers. The Fee’s discovering begins the subsequent stage of due course of, giving each corporations the possibility to problem the proof and argue that their providers shouldn’t fall beneath the regime.
If the Fee confirms its view, AWS and Azure would be part of the listing of core platform providers topic to DMA duties. The principles are designed to cease the biggest digital platforms from utilizing entrenched market positions to drawback rivals or enterprise customers. In apply, that would imply nearer scrutiny of interoperability, self-preferencing, contractual phrases and entry circumstances for corporations that rely upon cloud infrastructure.
The Brussels Occasions reported that AWS and Azure are the biggest and second-largest cloud suppliers within the EU and collectively account for about 60% of the market, whereas additionally noting early objections from each corporations. Amazon criticised what it described as an pointless regulatory layer, whereas Microsoft questioned why Google Cloud was not included in the identical research, in keeping with the Brussels-based outlet.
Europe’s AI ambitions rely upon the cloud
The case lands at a delicate second for Europe’s digital technique. EU establishments are attempting to assist home-grown innovation whereas additionally limiting dependence on a small variety of non-European infrastructure suppliers. That rigidity is very seen in synthetic intelligence, the place cloud capability, information entry and computing energy can decide which corporations scale and which stay marginal.
The European Occasions not too long ago reported on how Europe is making an attempt to show analysis and start-up expertise into bigger expertise corporations by means of new innovation funding and sovereignty-focused assist. That wider push for European tech champions will probably be tough if smaller companies can not transfer information, providers or workloads between cloud suppliers on honest phrases.
For policymakers, the cloud case is subsequently not solely about Amazon and Microsoft. It’s about whether or not Europe’s digital financial system can stay open sufficient for brand spanking new entrants, safe sufficient for public-interest makes use of, and aggressive sufficient to keep away from reproducing the identical focus that formed earlier platform markets.
The subsequent resolution will carry wider penalties
A last designation wouldn’t settle each competitors concern in cloud computing. It will, nevertheless, carry two of the sector’s most influential actors right into a regulatory framework constructed round contestability and equity. That might strengthen the place of enterprise customers searching for clearer phrases and extra technical freedom, but it surely might additionally set off a broader dispute over how far Europe ought to go in regulating infrastructure that’s more and more world, advanced and capital-intensive.
The Fee is now making an attempt to attract a cautious line: agency sufficient to forestall structural lock-in, however procedural sufficient to resist authorized problem. The end result will probably be watched not solely by cloud suppliers, however by each European firm, public physique and analysis establishment constructing its future on rented computing energy.
