France: Closed inquiry on competition in the cloud computing sector

On 29 June 2023, the French Competition Authority closed its inquiry on competition in the cloud computing sector and published a market study with its findings. In particular, the Authority focused on IT infrastructure ("Infrastructure-as-a-Service") and platform services ("Platform-as-a-Service") and found the sector to be dominated by three major providers that could harm competition: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. The Authority identified several risks to competition, for example, cloud credits, egress fees, or the process of changing from one provider to another. The Authority also identifies market failures likely to be addressed by the regulations under discussion such as the European Data Act or the French draft law to secure and regulate the digital space. Finally, the Authority highlights the importance of monitoring competition in relation to large language models (such as ChatGPT), edge computing, cloud gaming, and cybersecurity.