Amazon internet service outage highlights EU’s ‘overwhelming reliance on Big Tech’

Despite its name, cloud computing is not a distant technology in the sky made up of water vapour. It is on ground level – and its problems can cause global issues, taking down banking platforms, government websites, social media, and food delivery services.

Cloud computing also isn’t a monolith. There is more than one cloud, and as the Amazon Web Service (AWS) outage on Monday showed, overreliance on one cloud can cause internet apps and sites to have little alternative when technical issues arise.

AWS said that its cloud service is back to normal after solving the problem caused by an issue with companies connecting to AWS's data services in the United States.

"These disruptions are not just technical issues; they’re democratic failures,” said Corinne Cath-Speth, an expert on cloud computing and head of digital at human rights organisation ARTICLE 19.

“When a single provider goes dark, critical services go offline with it – media outlets become inaccessible, secure communication apps like Signal stop functioning, and the infrastructure that serves our digital society crumbles,” she said.

She urged companies to diversify their cloud computing, which she called “the infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications”. She warned that firms “cannot be dependent on a handful of companies”.

Meanwhile, members of parliament in the United Kingdom have questioned the country’s overreliance on US information technology (IT) infrastructure after the UK’s tax authority, HMRC, and banks were affected by the AWS outage.

A committee of MPs wrote a letter to Lucy Rigby, the economic secretary to the treasury, asking about the IT outages.

One of the questions included “Is HM Treasury concerned that seemingly key parts of our IT infrastructure are hosted abroad?”

They also questioned why AWS has not been designated a critical third party (CTP), or a provider that could threaten the UK’s financial security if its service is disrupted. UK rules allow regulators to intervene and improve these providers.

AWS is the cloud infrastructure leader, and Monday’s incident has reignited calls for a Europe-based cloud system.

“Europe’s overwhelming reliance on Big Tech for our digital infrastructure makes us incredibly vulnerable,” said Robin Berjon, an independent technologist.

“Europe needs to create diversity in the market and support sovereign solutions that reduce the power held by increasingly hostile foreign corporations. This needs to happen across all of our critical digital infrastructure,” he added.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control around 70 per cent of Europe’s cloud market.

But Europe is trying to have a stake in the market with Gaia-X, a project launched by the European Union in 2020, which aims to build a counter to US cloud dominance.

While it is not a cloud provider, it aims to build a European cloud infrastructure where companies can exchange data.

The European Commission this year will also propose a Cloud and AI Development Act. It aims to at least triple the EU’s data centre capacity within the next five to seven years.

The Commission says the act will work alongside a proposed single EU-wide cloud policy for public administrations and public procurement.

However, the question for the EU will not just be about regulating Big Tech but whether its measures go far enough to allow homegrown companies to compete with it.