Hundreds of thousands of users were left unable to access critical services last night as Microsoft Azure suffered an unexpected crash, just nine days after an Amazon Web Services outage brought 'half the internet' to a standstill.
Experts warn that the world's reliance on a handful of cloud computing giants—Microsoft, Amazon, and Google—creates systemic risks. Together, these three companies host between 60 and 70 per cent of global cloud services, meaning any disruption can have widespread consequences.
Colette Mason, AI consultant at Clever Clogs AI, said: 'We're seeing what "putting all your eggs in one basket" looks like on a global scale.' Dr Saqib Kakvi of Royal Holloway University added that around 60 per cent of companies depend on a 'near triopoly' of providers.
The outage, which began around 15:30 GMT, triggered over 105,000 reports on Down Detector and affected services including Microsoft 365, Outlook, Xbox Live, and Copilot. Experts warn that a simultaneous failure of multiple providers could lead to a global internet blackout.
