Draft, not yet released. In stewardship review. Not indexed until the first approved release.

Key findings

Twelve findings carry the cloud baseline. They are grouped by coupling and never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

7 min read1 figure0 tables19 notesNR-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Cloud is shared infrastructure with a physical footprint
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Energy
    3. 2.3 Water
    4. 2.4 Finance
    5. 2.5 Governance
    6. 2.6 Infrastructure
    7. 2.7 Systemic
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Shared control-plane fault with diverging sovereignty rules
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline finding

ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-011

Three large cloud and network events in 2025 lasted from 3 hours 10 minutes to 14 hours 32 minutes, each traced by its operator to an internal fault.

Figure 2.1Duration of three operator-reported events (hours)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
AWS us-east-1, 19 to 20 October 202514.5
Google Cloud, 12 June 20257.5
Cloudflare, 18 November 2025, to core traffic restored3.2

Sources: AWS20; Google Cloud21; Cloudflare22. Durations are derived from stated times, method (3). The events differ in scope and are not comparable.

Implication

Each operator traced its event to an internal fault: a latent race condition in a DNS system for a regional database service at AWS20, blank fields in policy data that crashed a control service at Google Cloud21, and a feature file that doubled in size at Cloudflare, which stated that no cyber attack was involved22. Services built on these platforms failed together. The reports do not say how many customers or public services were affected.

What would move it

Further post-event reports, any regulator reporting of cloud incidents and provider dependence registers would each move this finding.

2.2Energy

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-001

    The IEA reports that data centres used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, 1.5% of global electricity, and shows 945 TWh in its 2030 base case, with the United States the largest share of growth.1

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-002

    US data centres used about 176 TWh in 2023, 4.4% of US electricity, up from 58 TWh in 2014; the national laboratory projects 6.7 to 12% of US electricity in 2028.23

  3. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-003

    Data centres used 22% of metered electricity in Ireland in 2024, up from 21% in 2023.4

  4. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-004

    Google reports that its data centre electricity use grew 27% in 2024 while its data centre energy emissions fell 12%, and Microsoft reports company-wide electricity use of 29.8 TWh in fiscal 2024, up from 23.6 TWh.56

  5. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-005

    Operators report fleet efficiency, with Google at a PUE of 1.09 and AWS at 1.15 in 2024, but each compares itself with a different industry average, from 1.25 to 1.56.579

2.3Water

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-006

    Microsoft reports water consumption of 5,807 megalitres in fiscal 2024, down from 7,844 after a change of estimation method, and 46% of its withdrawals in areas of water stress; Google reports water consumption up 28% in 2024.56

  2. ReportedEQL 2NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-007

    A modelling preprint projects that global AI demand could need 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water withdrawal in 2027; it is a projection, not a measurement.8

2.4Finance

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-008

    Three providers held 63% of cloud infrastructure revenue in the second quarter of 2026, which was USD 143.4 billion and 43% above the year before, according to an industry analyst.10

2.5Governance

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-009

    The UK competition authority published its final cloud market decision on 31 July 2025 and recommended strategic market status investigations of Microsoft and AWS; the European Commission opened three DMA cloud market investigations on 18 November 2025.11121314

  2. ReportedEQL 5NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-010

    The EU Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025 and removes cloud switching and data egress charges from 12 January 2027.1516

2.6Infrastructure

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-011

    Operator reports describe three large events: AWS us-east-1 for 14 hours 32 minutes in October 2025, Google Cloud for about 7 hours 27 minutes in June 2025, and Cloudflare for 3 hours 10 minutes until core traffic was largely restored in November 2025.202122

2.7Systemic

  1. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is a fault in a shared provider control plane while dependence is concentrated and sovereignty rules diverge. § scenario

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 20Amazon Web Services (ed.), Summary of the Amazon DynamoDB Service Disruption in the Northern Virginia (US-EAST-1) Region (post-event summary; 19 October 11:48 PM to 20 October 2:20 PM PDT; latent race condition in the DNS management system for the regional endpoint; services and times listed; operator report). Amazon Web Services, Seattle. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 21Google Cloud (ed.), Incident report for the Service Control outage of 12 June 2025 (status page; 10:51 to 18:18 PDT by the incident header; mini report gives different times; policy data with blank fields caused a null pointer crash in Service Control; operator report). Google, Mountain View. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 22Cloudflare (ed.), Cloudflare outage on November 18, 2025 (blog post; start 11:20 UTC; core traffic largely restored 14:30 UTC; full recovery 17:06 UTC; Bot Management feature file doubled in size and exceeded a limit of 200 features; not caused by a cyber attack, per the operator). Cloudflare, San Francisco. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 1UNVERIFIED, not opened: IEA (ed.), Energy and AI (data centres about 415 TWh in 2024, about 1.5% of global electricity; about 945 TWh in the 2030 base case; about 1,200 TWh in 2035 with a range of 700 to 1,700), taken from search-result summaries; the report pages returned access errors. International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 2Shehabi, A. et al., 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, published 19 December 2024, DOI 10.71468/P1WC7Q (publication page; the page gives authors and a scenario range to 2028 but no figures; figures read in the DOE summary [3]). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. doi:10.71468/P1WC7Qback
  6. 3US Department of Energy (ed.), DOE releases new report evaluating increase in electricity demand from data centres (20 December 2024; about 4.4% of US electricity in 2023; 6.7 to 12% projected for 2028; 58 TWh in 2014 and 176 TWh in 2023). US Department of Energy, Washington. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 4Central Statistics Office (ed.), Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2024 (statistical release of 10 June 2025; 22% of metered electricity in 2024, 21% in 2023; the GWh table was not in the content read). Central Statistics Office, Cork. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 5Google (ed.), 2025 Environmental Report (PDF; fiscal year 2024; data centre electricity consumption up 27%, data centre energy emissions down 12%, fleet PUE 1.09 against a stated industry average of 1.56, water consumption up 28%; company-reported). Google, Mountain View. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 6Microsoft (ed.), 2025 Environmental Data Fact Sheet (PDF; fiscal year ended 30 June 2024; Table 6 electricity consumed within the organisation 29,829,540 MWh in FY24 and 23,567,502 in FY23; Table 9 water consumption 5,807 ML in FY24 and 7,844 in FY23 after a new estimation approach; company-reported, section 1 reviewed by an external firm). Microsoft, Redmond. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 7Amazon (ed.), 2024 Amazon Sustainability Report (PDF; AWS global PUE 1.15 in 2024 against a stated public cloud industry average of 1.25 and 1.63 for on-premises data centres, citing IDC; AWS water use effectiveness 0.15 L per kWh in 2024; company-reported). Amazon, Seattle. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 9UNVERIFIED, not opened: Uptime Institute (ed.), Global Data Center Survey 2025 (average PUE 1.54; power the cause of 45% of outages), taken from search-result summaries; the survey page returned an access error. Uptime Institute, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 8Li, P., Yang, J., Islam, M.A. and Ren, S., Making AI Less Thirsty: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models, arXiv:2304.03271, v1 April 2023, v5 March 2025 (abstract page; projection of 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water withdrawal in 2027; accepted by Communications of the ACM per the page). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 10Synergy Research Group (ed.), Q2 Cloud Market Passes $143 Billion; Highest Growth Rate in Eight Years (release of 30 July 2026; Amazon 28%, Microsoft 20%, Google 15%; quarterly revenue USD 143.4 billion; growth 43%; definition IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud; industry analyst). Synergy Research Group, Reno. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 11UK Competition and Markets Authority (ed.), Cloud services market investigation (case page; final decision published 31 July 2025; recommends prioritising strategic market status investigations of Microsoft and AWS; board decision expected in the first quarter of 2026; the decision documents were not opened). Competition and Markets Authority, London. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 12European Commission (ed.), Commission opens market investigations into cloud computing services under the Digital Markets Act (announcement of 18 November 2025; two investigations on whether AWS and Microsoft Azure should be designated and one on whether the DMA fits cloud). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  16. 13The Register (ed.), Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown (news article of 18 November 2025; possible obligations and fines up to 10% of worldwide turnover; trade press, secondary). Situation Publishing, London. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  17. 14UNVERIFIED, not opened: trade press reports of mid-2026 that the Commission informed Amazon and Microsoft of a preliminary view that they should be designated as gatekeepers for cloud, taken from search-result summaries; the one article fetched returned an access error. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  18. 15European Commission (ed.), Data Act (policy page; applicable from 12 September 2025; entered into force in January 2024). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  19. 16European Commission (ed.), Data Act explained (policy page; switching charges including data egress charges removed from 12 January 2027; transitional period 11 January 2024 to 12 January 2027; notice period not on the page). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: Cloud, Edge and Distributed Computing (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-CLOUD-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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