The EU Is About to Call AWS and Azure "Gatekeepers"—Here's What That Actually Means

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What the Digital Markets Act Actually Is
3. What "Gatekeeper" Status Would Actually Require
4. The Specific Problem the EU Is Targeting: Cloud Lock-In
5. The Timeline and Where Things Actually Stand
6. How Amazon and Microsoft Are Responding
7. The Detail That Makes This More Than a Pricing Dispute
8. Why This Matters Beyond the Two Companies Named
9. Learning Cloud Platforms at Innovative Academy
10. FAQs
11. Final Thoughts

1. Introduction

The European Commission is preparing to do something it hasn't done to a cloud computing company before: formally designate AWS and Microsoft Azure as "gatekeepers" under the EU's Digital Markets Act.

A final decision is expected in November 2026, and if it goes the way the Commission's preliminary findings suggest, both companies would face a set of obligations specifically designed around one problem—how hard it is for a customer to actually leave.

2. What the Digital Markets Act Actually Is

The Digital Markets Act is EU legislation aimed at reining in anti-competitive behavior among dominant digital platforms, and until now it's mostly been associated with companies like Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon's retail and advertising businesses rather than cloud infrastructure specifically.

Extending it to cloud computing treats AWS and Azure the same way the law already treats a dominant app store or search engine—as essential infrastructure whose market position itself creates obligations that a smaller competitor wouldn't face.

3. What "Gatekeeper" Status Would Actually Require

If the European Commission finalizes the designation as expected, AWS and Azure would have six months to comply with a specific set of DMA obligations:

• Removing switching barriers — making it less difficult for customers to move to another provider.
• Improving interoperability — between their platforms and competitors'.
• Addressing bundling and tying — practices that push customers toward using more of one company's services than they might otherwise choose.
• Reviewing financial and contractual terms — the conditions attached to their cloud offerings.

None of this is a fine or a one-time penalty—it's an ongoing compliance obligation that would reshape how both companies are allowed to structure pricing and product bundling going forward.

4. The Specific Problem the EU Is Targeting: Cloud Lock-In

The Commission's preliminary findings zero in on a specific list of what makes switching cloud providers difficult in practice:

• High switching costs
• Lengthy and complicated migration procedures
• A lack of genuine interoperability between major platforms
• Data-egress charges that specifically penalize moving data out rather than just charging for moving it in

That last item has its own separate, already-moving piece of EU regulation attached to it. The EU Data Act is scheduled to begin phasing out switching charges entirely starting January 2027, which would land just two months after the gatekeeper decision expected this November—making early 2027 a genuinely consequential stretch for how cloud contracts in Europe actually work.

5. The Timeline and Where Things Actually Stand

• June 2026 — The Commission sent preliminary findings to both Amazon and Microsoft.
• November 2026 — A final gatekeeper decision is expected, after which designated companies would have six months to comply.
• January 2027 — The EU Data Act begins phasing out switching charges.
• May 2027 — A broader DMA investigation specifically into cloud computing practices is expected to conclude.

The gatekeeper designation itself is really the first of several regulatory moments arriving in sequence rather than a single isolated decision.

6. How Amazon and Microsoft Are Responding

Both companies have disputed the Commission's preliminary findings rather than accepting them quietly.

Amazon has specifically warned that this kind of regulation could harm investment in the region, framing the obligations as a disincentive to continued infrastructure spending in Europe.

Microsoft has taken a different angle, questioning why Google Cloud isn't facing comparable regulatory scrutiny despite also being a major cloud provider in the same market—an argument less about disputing the underlying lock-in concerns than about the fairness of who is being targeted.

7. The Detail That Makes This More Than a Pricing Dispute

One specific line from the Commission's own findings is worth sitting with: regulators noted that "AI tools and partnerships offered by Amazon and Microsoft have become a factor in customers' choice of cloud provider," further cementing their existing market positions.

That's a notably forward-looking justification for a competition law action. The Commission isn't just responding to lock-in that already exists from years of infrastructure decisions; it's responding to a newer dynamic where AI-specific tooling and partnerships are actively strengthening the same incumbents' positions in real time.

That suggests regulators see the situation as a problem that would keep getting harder to address the longer it's left alone.

8. Why This Matters Beyond the Two Companies Named

Even for someone with no direct stake in EU regulatory policy, this development is worth tracking because of what it signals about where cloud computing careers are heading.

Multi-cloud literacy—understanding how workloads move between AWS, Azure, and other providers, and what genuinely portable infrastructure design looks like versus what's quietly dependent on one vendor's specific services—is about to become more directly relevant to how European cloud contracts are actually structured, not just a theoretical best practice.

Anyone building AWS or Azure skills right now is doing so at the exact moment when the rules governing how portable that work has to be are being actively rewritten.

9. Learning Cloud Platforms at Innovative Academy

Innovative Academy's AWS Training and Azure programs in Bangalore cover both major platforms with hands-on work in real accounts, which matters directly here.

Understanding how a specific service actually works under the hood, rather than just which button to click, is what makes it possible to judge for yourself what's genuinely portable infrastructure and what's a vendor-specific convenience that creates exactly the kind of lock-in this regulatory action is responding to.

10. FAQs

1. Does this mean AWS and Azure broke any laws?

Not in the sense of a specific violation being alleged—gatekeeper designation under the DMA is a forward-looking regulatory classification based on market position and structural characteristics, not a finding of past wrongdoing. The obligations that follow are about future conduct, not penalties for something already done.

2. Will the change actually make it cheaper or easier to switch cloud providers?

That's the stated goal, and the EU Data Act's planned phase-out of switching charges starting January 2027 is a concrete, separate step in that direction regardless of how the gatekeeper decision itself lands. Whether the broader interoperability requirements achieve the same effect in practice remains to be seen once compliance actually begins.

3. Why isn't Google Cloud facing the same scrutiny, given Microsoft's objection?

That question isn't fully resolved yet—it's part of Microsoft's own public pushback against the preliminary findings and reflects a genuine point of contention about which companies meet the DMA's specific gatekeeper criteria, which depend on market share and other structural thresholds that may land differently across providers.

4. Does this affect AWS or Azure customers outside the EU?

The direct legal obligations apply specifically to EU operations, but a company that has to rebuild its interoperability and switching practices for European customers often ends up applying at least some of those changes more broadly, since maintaining two entirely separate sets of technical practices by region adds cost and complexity.

5. Is the ruling connected to AI in any direct way, or just a coincidence of timing?

It's a direct part of the Commission's own reasoning—regulators specifically cited AI tools and partnerships as a factor actively reinforcing Amazon and Microsoft's market positions, which is part of why the designation is being pursued now rather than being treated as a settled, static market structure.

11. Final Thoughts

A formal EU gatekeeper designation for AWS and Azure would be a genuinely new kind of regulatory attention for cloud infrastructure specifically, not just an extension of rules that were really written with app stores and search engines in mind.

Whatever the November decision ends up being, the underlying concern—that switching clouds is hard enough to itself be a competitive problem—doesn't go away, and it's worth understanding now rather than treating it as background noise in a market most people assume will keep working exactly the way it already does.

Want to build hands-on AWS and Azure skills? Explore the cloud training programs at Innovative Academy and learn how to design infrastructure that stays portable across providers.

Sources

• Cloud Computing News — AWS and Azure face EU gatekeeper rules over cloud lock-in
• GuruFocus — EU Digital Markets Act Set to Impact Amazon Cloud Services Amid Regulatory Scrutiny
• Innovative Academy — AWS Training in Bangalore