Monday 12th January 2026. CISPE is concerned that the European Commission may repeat the mistakes it made in approving Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware as it considers Google’s acquisition of Wiz. Full consideration of multiplier effect of centralisation in essential digital services through acquisitions is essential to protect fair competition for European cloud service providers and choice for European businesses in the cloud.
Google’s acquisition of Wiz raises two major concerns with CISPE members:
- Through its control of Wiz’s widely licensed software, Google will have the ability and the incentive to use unfair software licensing terms to lock-in customers to its own extensive and growing cloud ecosystem to the detriment of European cloud infrastructure service providers.
These concerns are only accentuated as customers move to increasingly AI-driven solutions reliant on both cyber security and cloud infrastructures where Google’s full-stack dominance is especially pronounced.
- In the multi-cloud environment where Wiz and its cross-cloud security capabilities are especially strong, will Google ownership increase the risk of ‘leakage’ between clouds. Google could benefit from unfair insights into customer data, behaviour and usage metrics on 3rd party clouds and be able to leverage those insights to entice customers to its own cloud (GCP) to the detriment of smaller European rivals.
These concerns are all the more worrying since Google has, to date, avoided the additional scrutiny of its cloud services under the DMA. Google is now the second largest company in the world by market capitalisation, and many magnitudes better funded than even the largest European cloud player. We calculate from public sources that Alphabet (Google’s owner) has approximately 2,000 times the investable cash than the largest European player (OVHcloud) with nearly $100 billion vs €40 million.
As we move into an age of AI, Google has the scale, the data, the models and the investment firepower to completely dominate the sector, drive European players out, and lock in customers. This acquisition will only strengthen its position in this emerging market and must be considered in light of these factors.
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