What are the latest EU Digital Markets Act developments regarding cloud computing gatekeepers, including the European Commission's expected preliminary findings that Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services appear to meet gatekeeper criteria (with a final decision expected by the

Obligations if designated

If designated, AWS and Azure would face the standard DMA obligations under Articles 5, 6, and 7, adapted for cloud infrastructure :

• Interoperability requirements: Gatekeepers must enable data portability and interoperability with competing cloud services, allowing customers to move workloads and data between providers .
• Restrictions on customer lock-in: The DMA mandates that gatekeepers must make it easy for business users to switch away, including ending contracts under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms .
• Prohibitions on self-preferencing: AWS/Azure could not rank their own services more favorably than third-party offerings in the cloud ecosystem, nor use non-public data from business customers to compete against them .
• Fair access to data: Gatekeepers would be required to grant business users access to data generated through their use of the cloud platform .

Penalties

Under the DMA, the Commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the company's total worldwide annual turnover for non-compliance, and up to 20% for repeat infringements . For systemic violations, the Commission can also order behavioral or structural remedies, including the breakup of services if necessary .

Italy's first national DMA probe — Apple (June 2026)

On June 16, 2026, the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) launched the first-ever national competition authority investigation under the DMA, targeting Apple .

• Focus: The probe examines whether Apple's iOS and iPadOS operating systems comply with DMA interoperability obligations for third-party consumer cloud services .
• Core allegation: Apple's device backup processes allegedly favor iCloud over competing cloud providers, creating a technical barrier for third-party cloud services to offer equivalent backup functionality on iPhones and iPads .
• Significance: This is the first time a national competition authority (not the European Commission itself) has opened a DMA investigation — a major milestone in decentralized DMA enforcement .

Broader significance — extending DMA into cloud infrastructure

These actions represent a major expansion of the DMA's reach beyond app stores and messaging (the first wave of gatekeeper designations) into the core of cloud infrastructure:

• The cloud computing market investigations were explicitly launched because of the "relevance of cloud computing services for businesses operating in the EU and for the European economy more generally" .
• If AWS and Azure become gatekeepers, the DMA would regulate access, switching, and competition in a market that underpins virtually all other digital services — from AI training to enterprise software.
• The Italian probe adds a vertical layer: the DMA's interoperability obligations for operating systems (iOS/iPadOS) are now being tested on how they apply to cloud services that connect through those platforms, not just the cloud platforms themselves.
• Together, these cases signal that the EU considers cloud lock-in and self-preferencing in infrastructure as equally harmful as the app store and messaging practices tackled in the DMA's first designations .