The European Union’s sweeping digital-competition law has, until now, stopped short of the cloud, the computing layer where much of the modern internet actually runs. In June, regulators signaled they intended to change that, telling Amazon and Microsoft they planned to bring the companies’ cloud services under the law. This week a timetable emerged: the decision is expected in November, according to a Bloomberg report on October 2.
At issue are Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, the two largest cloud providers in Europe. The European Commission’s preliminary view, delivered to both companies in June, is that AWS and Azure are an important gateway between businesses and their customers in the EU, and therefore should be designated as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act. The designation would be the first time cloud infrastructure has been brought under the law.
The unusual part is how the Commission got there. The Digital Markets Act normally applies to companies that clear hard numerical thresholds: large turnover, a high market value, and tens of millions of users in the EU. AWS and Azure, considered strictly as cloud services, did not clear those thresholds. The Commission can still designate a company on qualitative grounds, and that is what it appears poised to do, pointing to market position, customer lock-in, and the companies’ growing role in AI.
The June notice laid out the reasoning. Amazon and Microsoft have already been designated as gatekeepers for other services, the Commission said, evidence of their significant impact on the internal market. Their cloud arms have large turnover, and their operational capacity and investments appear to have outpaced competitors. And while AI is sharply increasing demand for cloud services, AWS and Azure appear to retain a large share of that new demand inside their own ecosystems.
Designation would carry real obligations. Gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act must make their services interoperable with rivals, refrain from favoring their own products, and avoid practices that lock customers in. The briefing the companies received outlined these requirements, and compliance work would have to be completed by May 2027 at the latest, roughly six months after a final decision, in line with the law’s timetable.
The process began long before this week. The Commission opened two market investigations in November 2025 to assess whether Amazon and Microsoft should be designated for their cloud services, and a third to examine whether the law’s existing obligations are doing enough in the cloud sector. Those investigations gathered input from business customers, competitors, and other stakeholders, and the Commission has been supported by the Dutch competition authority in a joint investigative team.
Amazon and Microsoft now have room to respond. Preliminary findings do not prejudge the outcome, and the companies have the right to examine the Commission’s file and reply in writing. Neither company has signaled it will accept the designation quietly, and both have argued in other proceedings that the Digital Markets Act imposes costs that ultimately fall on customers.
For the broader technology industry, the cloud designation is a test of how far the EU’s rulebook will reach. Cloud computing was long treated as a back-end service rather than a consumer-facing platform, yet it has grown into one of the most concentrated layers of the digital economy. Bringing it under the Digital Markets Act would extend European oversight into the infrastructure that rivals, start-ups, and even other AI companies depend on.
The AI angle gives the case its urgency. Cloud providers have become the main suppliers of the computing power that AI models run on, and the Commission has noted that AI is increasing demand for their services while the two largest players hold a durable position. Regulators in Brussels have made clear they do not want the AI boom to harden an already concentrated market.
The law itself has a track record. Since it took effect, the Commission has designated a handful of large platforms, including Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and ByteDance, for services such as search, app stores, and messaging, and has ordered changes to how those services operate. A cloud designation would add an entirely new category of service to that list, one that sits underneath much of the rest of the digital economy.
For European businesses, the practical question is how much easier it becomes to switch providers. Cloud customers have long complained that moving data and workloads between platforms is costly and complicated, and that exit and transfer fees effectively punish companies that try. The interoperability and lock-in obligations attached to a gatekeeper designation are aimed directly at those frictions, and they are the parts of the law that would most change day-to-day behavior in the market.
A final decision in November would set off a scramble inside both companies to rework contracts, pricing, and product design to satisfy the new obligations. The stakes are high for European customers, who would gain more ability to move data and workloads between clouds, and for the two American companies, which would face a new layer of regulation over a business that has become central to their growth.
