AWS vacates its board seat at European cloud crew CISPE

... weeks after US titan was outvoted by other members to let Microsoft join the Euro cloud trade association

Amazon's Web Services wing has exited the board of CISPE (cloud infrastructure service providers in Europe), following a recent update to the Articles of Association that means only corporations based in the region can serve.

"Non-European cloud vendors with annual revenues exceeding of €10 billion can participate as adherent members – without influencing the Association's governance," a spokesperson at the trade association told The Register.

In conjunction with this change - which was voted through "without opposition" – CISPE has also introduced a Sovereignty and Strategic Autonomy Committee.

This, it said, was in response "to the increasing demand from European cloud users, government agencies, and private sector customers for competitive, homegrown cloud infrastructure and AI solutions."

CISPE added: "This shift comes at a critical time with concern over economic and geopolitical dependencies becoming more pronounced. The urgent need for a resilient, competitive, and independent European cloud ecosystem has never been clearer."

Across Europe, AWS, Microsoft and Google account for around 70 percent of spending on cloud infrastructure services by customers.

The board is now comprised of existing members Jacqueline van de Werken, Leaseweb (Netherlands), David Chassan, Outscale (France), Lorenzo Chiriatti, Register (Italy), and newly elected members including Alexander Windbichler, Anexia (Austria) and Jake Madders, Hyve (UK). The entire full-time board be found here.

"After serving on the board since CISPE's foundation and playing a key role in establishing it as Europe's leading cloud infrastructure trade body, AWS chose not to seek re-election. Additionally, due to changes in their corporate roles, the representatives from Gigas and UpCloud also did not stand for re-election."

Rightly or wrongly, CISPE was perceived by some in Europe as a lobby group for AWS. The trade association was highly critical of Microsoft and its licensing policies, which in reality did impact smaller regional cloud providers – as did AWS.

CISPE made its peace with Microsoft last July, settling a legal complaint filed by the group – which then consisted of 27 cloud providers – with the European Commission's antitrust authorities. The complaint centered on the cost of running Microsoft software in non-Azure clouds and some technical issues related to hosting.

Microsoft subsequently courted CISPE and is itself joining the association as an adherent (non-voting) member, something AWS was opposed to, as we exclusively revealed this month, but the Amazon arm was outvoted by other board members.

We asked CISPE if AWS opting to not seek re-election to the board was related to this, and a spokesperson said the decision by AWS for a matter for AWS to discuss. We put the point to AWS and it chose not to answer.

In a statement sent to The Register, AWS veep of policy EMEA Stephanie Ducalbe, said:

"We are proud of our contributions to CISPE's achievements and growth over nearly a decade and remain committed to the association and its founding principles. We believe this is the right moment to step back from the CISPE Board and create opportunities for other cloud services providers to take on leadership roles within the governing body of the association.

"As a dedicated CISPE member, we will continue to actively contribute to CISPE initiatives which champion the cloud industry, support cloud customers' choice and enhance European competitiveness.”

The cloud industry may be wondering if AWS will now ally itself with another trade org. On the subject of CISPE, a source close to the association we spoke to said: "Whether CISPE can truly reinvent itself as a champion for European sovereignty when it's carrying all that Microsoft baggage remains to be seen."

According to Synergy Research Group, the global cloud market was worth around $330 billion in 2024 and Europe typically accounts for 20 percent of this. Amazon, Microsoft and Google scooped up 31 percent, 20 percent and 12 percent respectively of customer spending on cloud worldwide, and we're told their market share is slightly higher in Europe.

John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director told us:

"Cloud sovereignty is an interesting issue. It is a hot topic and can be politically sensitive, so all major cloud providers have to have some solutions in their portfolio. But when it comes to choosing a cloud provider, for the majority of customers the prime concerns are over range of cloud services, quality of service, technology, security, flexibility, privacy, price and customer service.

"Data sovereignty and 'being local' may also come into it a little bit, though not as much as many seem to think," he claimed. ®