Aspen Policy Academy

AWS Cloud Outage Reveals Vendor Concentration Risk

  • Article Published October 22, 2025

This article originally appeared on TechTarget on October 22, 2025.

By Sean Michael Kerner

Among the original promises of the cloud was the availability of regionally distributed and highly resilient infrastructure for applications.

However, much of the infrastructure is consolidated among just a few providers, with AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud controlling a significant portion of the global infrastructure-as-a-service market. This consolidation creates concentrated points of failure, where a single regional outage can affect multiple industries simultaneously.

Betsy Cooper, executive director at Aspen Policy Academy, frames the dynamic concentration in terms of trade-offs. She noted that the internet now relies on a handful of large tech companies for our internet infrastructure.

Browse Related Articles

Green code against a black screen.

In Pentagon-Anthropic standoff, AI is real-time testing the balance of power in future of warfare

This article originally appeared on CNBC on February 27, 2026.
Mock code for an AI Large Language Model (LLM) that could intelligently answer questions.

How to Manage Misinformation in Large Language Models

This article originally appeared on Tech Policy Press on February 25, 2026.
Ring surveillance camera at a front door.

The Spy Next Door: Are Smart Doorbells Building a Surveillance State?

This article originally appeared on SC Media on January 28, 2026.