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

The 2027 agenda

Eight bounded questions open the 2027 cloud agenda. Each comes from a baseline finding, names the initiative that will carry it and the first output due in the 2027 cloud edition.

6 min read0 figures6 tables6 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
  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
    1. 7.1 Questions for the operational series
    2. 7.2 Portfolio proposed for the Q1 2027 alignment
    3. 7.3 The pathway
    4. 7.4 Universe 2027: evidence pack for the cloud candidate mission
    5. 7.5 Handoffs and routing
    6. 7.6 Feeds and signal register
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

7.1Questions for the operational series

  1. C-01

    Which public and critical services depend on one provider, region or control plane, and what happens when it fails?

    INI-XT08-DEP-01 · dependency map; first output: dependency register.

  2. C-02

    What load do new facilities add to local grids, and how long do connections take?

    INI-XT08-ENE-02 · grid and load; first output: site and grid table.

  3. C-03

    Can operator water and efficiency figures be put on a common basis?

    INI-XT08-WAT-03 · water and efficiency basis; first output: metric comparison.

  4. C-04

    How many organisations have tested an exit or a switch between providers?

    INI-XT08-EXT-04 · exit and switching tests; first output: test evidence table.

  5. C-05

    How large is the edge layer in energy, sites and devices?

    INI-XT08-EDG-05 · edge footprint; first output: edge inventory note.

  6. C-06

    Which national rules on data location and sovereignty differ, and how?

    To be admitted in 2027; first output: rule overlay.

  7. C-07

    What workforce exists for data centres, cloud operations and resilience engineering?

    To be admitted in 2027; first output: scoping note.

  8. C-08

    Which readiness capabilities have been tested in real events, and which are only planned?

    Readiness capability register; first output: rung evidence for 15 functions.

7.2Portfolio proposed for the Q1 2027 alignment

Five initiatives and one Universe mission candidate are proposed for the 2027 cloud portfolio. They are programme objects: no partner, funder or member is attached to them in this edition.

Table 7.1Objects proposed for the first operational quarter
IDObjectKindQuestionState
INI-XT08-DEP-01Dependency mapInitiativeC-01PROPOSED
INI-XT08-ENE-02Grid and loadInitiativeC-02PROPOSED
INI-XT08-WAT-03Water and efficiency basisInitiativeC-03PROPOSED
INI-XT08-EXT-04Exit and switching testsInitiativeC-04PROPOSED
INI-XT08-EDG-05Edge footprintInitiativeC-05PROPOSED
MSN-XT08-2027-01Shared control-plane fault Universe missionMissionC-01Candidate

7.3The pathway

The cloud edition reads national readiness chapters, the coupled sector reports on energy, cyber and digital systems and infrastructure, and the global edition through one governed evidence graph. At baseline the federation is designed; the global energy and lifeline editions are drafted. This page states what exists today and what comes next.

  1. 01

    National readiness chapters

    cloud dependence and data centre load in each national edition

    IN PREPARATION · national baselines

  2. 02

    Sector couplings

    GS-02 energy · GS-13 cyber and digital systems · SR-10 digital public infrastructure

    GS-02 DRAFTED · sector baselines

  3. 03

    Technology system model

    facilities, grid, water, market, resilience, governance

    v0 SPECIFIED · v1 with federation evidence

  4. 04

    Strategic links

    SR-02 lifeline systems · XT-06 semiconductors and compute

    PLANNED · strategic baselines

  5. 05

    Universe

    annual proving environment

    CANDIDATE MISSION · mandate in 2027

  6. 06

    XT-08 report

    this series

    BASELINE DRAFT · 2027 annual edition

  7. 07

    Evidence and correction

    one graph, many projections

    OPEN · first correction cycle in 2027

7.4Universe 2027: evidence pack for the cloud candidate mission

  1. 01

    Mandate

  2. 02

    Core Build · 1 month

  3. 03

    Action · 1 week

  4. 04

    Evidence seal

  5. 05

    Portfolio correction

  6. 06

    Next mandate

Table 7.2Universe 2027: evidence pack for the cloud candidate mission
ItemRecordStateTiming
F1Annual mandate recordPLANNEDafter the Q2 2027 alignment
F2Core Build recordPLANNEDone month before the exercise
F3Exercise evidencePLANNEDduring the Action week
F4Decision packetsPLANNEDexercise state only
F5Proof receiptsPLANNEDscoped to each recorded check
F6After-action reportPLANNEDwithin one quarter
F7Upgrade docketPLANNEDrouted to the Portfolio
F8Portfolio renewalPLANNED2027 global annual edition
F9Public synthesisPLANNEDpublic-safe extracts only

Mission

ID
MSN-XT08-2027-01 · Shared control-plane fault Universe mission
Role spine
Leadership sponsor · Institutional anchor · Mission lead: drawn from national pathways
Receiving actors
to be identified with the mandate

7.5Handoffs and routing

Where the baseline’s findings go next. A handoff routes a finding for awareness, review or work; it transfers no authority.

Table 7.3Handoffs and routing
FindingRouted toPurposeClass
ENE-001 · global electricityINI-XT08-ENE-02grid and loadPUBLIC
ENE-003 · Irish grid shareINI-XT08-ENE-02grid and loadPUBLIC
ENE-005 · PUE baselinesINI-XT08-WAT-03water and efficiency basisPUBLIC
WAT-006 · water reportsINI-XT08-WAT-03 · key F reviewwater and efficiency basisPUBLIC
FIN-008 · market sharesINI-XT08-DEP-01dependency mapPUBLIC
GOV-010 · switching rulesINI-XT08-EXT-04exit and switching testsPUBLIC
INF-011 · outagesINI-XT08-DEP-01dependency mapPUBLIC
SYS-012 · compound pathwayMSN-XT08-2027-01Universe candidateCONSORTIUM
Table 7.4Routing rules by publication class
ClassWhere it goesWho can see it
PUBLICthe published edition and its evidence bundleanyone
CONSORTIUMgoverned rooms of the federationconsortium members under agreement
CONTROLLEDneed-to-know channelsnamed competent actors only

7.6Feeds and signal register

Table 7.5Feeds watched from 2027
FeedProducerLatencyFeeds into
Operator status and post-event reportsAWS, Google Cloud, Cloudflare and othersper eventINF-011
Global electricity and data centre reportsIEAperiodicENE-001
National data centre electricity statisticsstatistics offices and laboratoriesannualENE-003
Operator sustainability reportsGoogle, Microsoft, AmazonannualENE-004
Cloud market releasesindustry analystsquarterlyFIN-008
EU competition and digital policy pagesEuropean Commissionper releaseGOV-009
UK competition case pageUK CMAper releaseGOV-009

Escalation routes

  • none · keep monitoring
  • research question
  • project
  • risk object
  • annual publication
  • signal report
Table 7.6Signals at baseline
IDSignalCorroborationSystemsRoute
SIG-XT08-001Three providers held 63% of cloud infrastructure revenue in Q2 202610CORROBORATEDFIN · INFresearch question C-01
SIG-XT08-002Competition reviews of cloud opened in the UK and EU1112CORROBORATEDGOV · FINinitiative C-04
SIG-XT08-003Three large events in 2025 traced to internal faults202122PARTIALINF · DATresearch question C-01

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. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 7: The 2027 agenda. 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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