In a nutshell: AWS and Azure could be classified as gatekeepers under the DMA, entailing interoperability obligations and maximum penalties of up to 20 percent of global revenue.
The European Commission could publish preliminary findings this week determining that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure meet the criteria of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for gatekeeper classification. This would bring cloud infrastructure under EU regulatory regime for the first time.
The European Commission is currently examining whether Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure should be classified as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Such a classification would have immediate business consequences: affected providers would be required to ensure interoperability with competing platforms, prevent customers from being locked in through technical or contractual means, and may not favor their own products over those of third parties. Violations of these obligations can be punished with fines of up to ten percent of global annual revenue, or up to 20 percent in case of repeated infringement.
The Commission opened the investigation in November 2024, triggered by the concentration of critical digital infrastructure among a few providers. Several major outage incidents highlighted this dependency in public awareness, such as the AWS outage at the end of October 2024, which disabled numerous services. The DMA had previously only covered certain services of individual companies such as app stores or messengers. Cloud infrastructure was not included.
US cloud hyperscalers generate approximately 70 percent of revenues in the European cloud market. Switching between providers is technically demanding and costly for customers, creating de facto lock-in effects. Mandatory interoperability rules could strengthen European providers such as OVHcloud, Hetzner and Scaleway and make the market more fragmented.
The possible expansion of the DMA to cloud infrastructure comes during a politically tense phase. The US government has repeatedly criticized European regulation as discrimination against American companies. Apple and Meta have already been subject to DMA penalties. A gatekeeper classification for AWS and Azure is likely to further escalate this conflict.
Source: www.it-daily.net · Published June 19, 2026
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