By Diana Moss
U.S. merger enforcement has taken a back seat in the cloud market, which has grown largely through acquisition and is now relatively mature. When merger enforcement in cloud does take shape, however, it could serve both to head off harmful consolidation and support non-competition cloud policy objectives such as the stability of cloud infrastructure and managing the demands of generative AI models. This article asks whether merger control is keeping up with the cloud. The first part begins by assessing antitrust’s role in broader cloud policy, followed by a look into evolving competition concerns in cloud markets. The second part looks at major issues in merger enforcement, including cloud market structure and what the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines mean for consolidation moving forward.
