全球云竞争概览 An Overview of Global Cloud Competition 202304.pdf

APRIL 2023

An Overview of Global

Cloud Competition

By James Andrew Lewis

In the nineteenth century, industrialization reshaped national power as it drove economic growth

and technological change. Digitalization will do the same in this century. Digitalization is the use of

computing technologies to change how we produce and communicate. The technologies include

terrestrial and undersea ber-optic cables, satellites, mobile telecom (including 5G and 6G), along with

the internet protocols and standards that let them interoperate. These provide the infrastructure (both

policymakers and another area of geopolitical competition as tech governance, sovereignty, and

economic competitiveness become major political issues.

The cloud is simply a computing infrastructure that can be accessed remotely, along with the data

stored on it, the software that runs on its infrastructure, and the services it provides. Cloud computing

is about services and data—digital information collected and organized to guide analysis—where it is

stored, where it is processed, and what laws govern its use.

Cloud services play a crucial role as the backbone technoloy. Other emerging technologies, such as

robotics, autonomous vehicles, biotechnoloy research, 5G, and articial intelligence, depend on the

cloud, making it truly strategic. The development of cloud services and infrastructure is a strategic

issue in that the outcome of cloud competition will shape the economic and security environment for

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Decisions by governments, companies, and consumers about which cloud providers to use will shape

commerce, global inuence, and international security. There is a growing competition between China

and the democracies over who will provide the infrastructure, technologies, and services that will drive

the economies of the future. Societies depend on the cloud (even if they are sometimes unaware of this)

An example from history comes from nineteenth-century Britain, with its leading position n global

shipping, nance, and telecommunications. These "networks," along with a strong domestic industry

and a powerful eet, underpinned Britain’s global leadership. The United States is not the British

Empire, but in 1945 with its allies, it was able to create a global order based on democracy, markets,

and the rule of law. China now intends to replace this order, and leadership in digitalization will help

determine the outcome of this contest.

The competition over the cloud is in many ways a continuation of the earlier contest over trustworthy 5G

telecom infrastructure. The similarities to the 5G battle are telling. It took several years for the policymaking

community to revise the Western approach to 5G to make it more competitive and to emphasize trust. The

5G competition is a useful precedent and the United States is on the same path when it comes to the cloud.

against the United States, but there are signicant dierences. U.S. service providers want to protect

their global market by establishing their independence from government agencies and, unlike Chinese

companies, have the legal standing to challenge any government request in independent courts.

The United States also does not engage in the commercial espionage that is widely and reasonably

uses espionage not only to acquire intellectual property but also (according to several Western

intelligence services) to acquire condential business information to help its companies in trade deals

and contract negotiations. In contrast, as the Snowden revelations showed, U.S. intentions focus on

security. U.S. surveillance was carried out for counterterrorism purposes, usually in cooperation with

and at the request of partner and allied governments. As recent agreements with the European Union

trustworthiness raise important questions for national policy. Exclusionary or protectionist policies

will harm economic growth and security, and this harm will only increase as the digital transformation

progresses. Companies that do not make use of the best cloud services will be at a competitive

disadvantage. Companies that use cloud services where there is risk of compromise create cybersecurity

and innovation risks for themselves and their nation. An untrustworthy cloud service provider can create

technological or economic dependence and bring with it the risks of interception or disruption of data.

Although the United States’ primary concern is security, other countries are driven by concerns of

equal, if not greater, importance. For countries in Africa, South America, and Asia, the most important

issue is economic development. They do not dismiss the risk of using untrustworthy equipment

and services but believe that the risk is outweighed by the prospect of faster development, even if

more than adequate for many business and government tasks. Given China’s nancial support to its

companies, market forces alone will not protect its security and the security of its allies. If it is to build

a trustworthy global infrastructure, the United States needs policies that address both development

and sovereignty and create the basis for fair competition over the provision of cloud infrastructure and

services. These are not conventional trade issues, so conventional trade and security strategies will be

inadequate. These are political and economic issues that require creating a new diplomatic agenda to

address technoloy and trust if the United States and its allies are to succeed in ensuring the emerging

global network is reliable and secure.

Although the United States can make a compelling case on the security risks of using untrustworthy