Organizations Must Own the Right to Their Cloud Compute, or Innovation Will Suffer

Why It Matters

Without control over cloud compute, enterprises face rising costs, stifled AI innovation, and regulatory risks tied to data sovereignty, making the issue critical for both business competitiveness and broader security concerns.

Summary

The UK Competition and Markets Authority has ruled that the public‑cloud market is no longer competitive, highlighting that three hyperscalers dominate 70% of Europe’s market and create costly lock‑in that prevents most firms from switching providers. Less than 1% of businesses change clouds annually, prompting many to adopt multi‑cloud strategies that have failed to deliver true portability, leaving data fragmented and governance opaque. The article argues that without true cloud‑compute sovereignty—visibility, auditability, and seamless workload mobility—innovation, AI development, and even national‑security interests are jeopardized. It calls for new architectures that unbundle compute from providers, ensuring organizations own the right to their data and AI models.