Major Clouds, Major Stakes: What the EU Probe Means for Enterprise Strategy

Last month, the European Commission announced three market investigations targeting the cloud business units of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure) (European Commission, 2025).

“Analyses of cloud markets conducted in recent years appear to indicate that the cloud computing services Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services occupy very strong positions in relation to businesses and consumers,” the EC said.

Two probes will ask whether these platforms qualify as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). A third will evaluate whether the DMA itself keeps pace with a landscape defined by infrastructure, AI, and globally integrated cloud-ecosystems. And if the verdict lands against AWS or Azure, the consequences rise beyond mere compliance: they reverberate through enterprise strategy, vendor lock-in and the very architecture of digital economies.

If these platforms are ultimately designated as “gatekeepers,” they stand to face sweeping obligations (interoperability mandates, restrictions on self-preference, data-portability rules) alongside fines up to 10 % of global turnover for non-compliance.

The EC aims to complete the initial investigations within 12 months. The decision point places cloud providers, their enterprise customers, and challenger platforms in a state of uncertainty. Investors must weigh the regulatory risk: major contracts, technology strategies, and vendor relationships may shift if the sector’s competitive dynamics change.

The DMA initially targeted consumer-facing platforms (e.g., search engines, app stores, and social networks). Applying it to cloud infrastructure requires legal creativity: AWS and Azure may surpass dominance thresholds in practice, even if they fall short in user-count metrics. The EC is using a qualitative route to assess whether its real-world impact qualifies it for gatekeeper status. Europe is not merely policing consumer-facing platforms but is now directly scrutinising the infrastructure that powers them, indicating two critical trends. First, the transition of cloud infrastructure into a crucial public-utility domain. Second, the recognition that dominance in cloud conveys systemic influence beyond simple market share.

For enterprise buyers, the regulatory shake-up in cloud computing is a double-edged sword. It promises more freedom: greater leverage in negotiations, less vendor lock-in, and a more open market for sourcing services. But it also introduces new layers of complexity. Compliance risks, shifting obligations, and geopolitical scrutiny are fast becoming part of the procurement calculus.

What was once a question of performance and price now touches on sovereignty, antitrust, and digital resilience. The battleground is no longer just between hyperscalers, but between market logic and regulatory oversight. And that’s a shift every enterprise leader, investor, and policymaker will need to navigate.

The infrastructure that once focused on speed and scale now faces scrutiny over dominance and control. As AWS and Microsoft enter this regulatory zone, their responses show they perceive more than compliance cost: they see potential disruption to how value is generated in the cloud.

In the months ahead, every contract, every procurement decision and every vendor roadmap may show that the cloud era is as much about governance as it is about innovation.