EU Readies Designation for Azure and AWS Under Digital Markets Act

The European Union is set to designate Microsoft's Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) under its Digital Markets Act, which will require them to comply with interoperability requirements and curb customer lock-in and self-preferencing.

Regulators are putting the final touches on a DMA investigation into the two firms, which will conclude that they meet the requirements to fall under the scope of its rules. The decision is set to be issued in November but still in draft form, with the timing potentially slipping.

The move marks a strengthening of the EU's regulatory scrutiny of the cloud sector, which has faced uncertainty due to major outages and strategic vulnerabilities from relying too heavily on non-EU players.