Fourth, that cloud providers do not influence the shape of the internet – this final section highlights both risk and opportunity for the internet which runs much deeper than speech controls and content takedowns. Third, only authoritarian states distort the cloud – a pernicious myth and one that continues to hold back a cogent Western stategy to defend the open internet and threatens to upend the economics supporting the public cloud. Second, that cloud computing is not a supply chain risk – cloud providers play host to some of the most remarkable security challenges and widely used technical infrastructure in the world, their decisions impact the supply chains of millions of users and entail management of risk at sometimes novel scale. First, that all data is created equal – a discussion of how cloud providers build and operate these data intensive services and the impact of debates about how and where to localize these systems and their contents. This paper offers a brief primer on the concepts underneath cloud computing and then introduces four myths about the interaction of cloud and geopolitics. In competition and cooperation, cloud computing is the canvas on which states conduct significant political, security, and economic activity. Cloud computing is embedded in contemporary geopolitics the choices providers make are influenced by, and influential on, the behavior of states.
Tech Policy: Cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon are seeing userbases grow so large, and include ever more government users, that they are increasingly host to cyberattacks launched and targeted within their own networks.
National Security: If the United States and China are battling over the security of 5G telecommunications technology, which is still barely in use, what kind of risk will this great-power competition have for cloud computing? Cloud services are becoming the battleground for diplomatic, economic, and military dispute between states. Companies providing these cloud services are substantially impacted by geopolitics. This paper pokes holes in four recurrent myths about the cloud to provide actionable advice, intended to increase the transparency and security of the cloud, to policymakers in the United States and European Union and practitioners in industry.Ĭommerce and Trade: Amazon retains a lead in the cloud market, but it, Microsoft, and Google are pushing data/infrastructure localized friendly products that might well undermine the economics of their business in years to come. More on cloud security & policy Executive summaryĬloud computing is more than technology and engineering minutia-it has real social and political consequences.