The European Commission’s Cloud and AI Development Act, set for formal announcement this week, will add mandatory “non-price” criteria to government cloud procurement, structurally favoring EU-built technology over American providers.
Reuters obtained draft documents showing the criteria include requirements for software and hardware developed within the EU, plus data protection standards and assessments of how open cloud vendors’ respective markets are for cloud services. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, collectively dominant in European cloud, don’t clear those bars.
The EC described the law as “crucial for strengthening Europe’s own technological capacities, for Europe’s competitiveness and security,” and declined to say more. That’s the formal language. The operational result: U.S. providers can still bid on EU public contracts, but they’ll be scored lower on mandatory criteria before price enters the equation.
Vendor rankings are the headline change. The deeper shift is in evaluation architecture: procurement offices across 27 member states will integrate non-price scoring into tender processes built around price and technical specification. U.S. primes holding EU contracts today can’t rely on DPA paperwork alone.
The Trump administration, which has criticized EU laws designed to put limits on Big Tech companies, called EU curbs on U.S. tech “a form of taxation” in a speech last year. Prior DMA enforcement targeted market conduct. This Act targets procurement access directly.
Worth reviewing your EU public-sector pipeline before the final text drops.
Rebecca Lauren