EU competition authorities will decide by February 10 whether to approve Alphabet’s acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz. The $32 billion (€27.4 billion) deal is the largest ever for Google’s parent company.
Alphabet announced the acquisition in March last year. With Wiz, Google aims to strengthen its position in the race for cloud computing against Amazon and Microsoft, especially in security. The Israeli company, only five years old, grew rapidly to an annual turnover of approximately $1 billion.
The main question is whether the deal will distort competition. Tech deals have been under close scrutiny for years due to concerns that dominant companies will further expand their market power. In November, Alphabet already received the green light from the US authorities.
European cloud sovereignty plays a role
The EU is currently working on new rules for cloud computing and digital sovereignty. In 2026, the Cloud and AI Development Act is set to come into force, aiming to triple European data center capacity.
The European Commission can approve the deal during the preliminary investigation, with or without conditions. If there are serious concerns, it will open a full investigation. In that case, Google will probably have to wait months longer for clarity.
Wiz offers a platform that helps companies detect real-time threats in multicloud environments. The company works not only with Google Cloud, but also with AWS and Microsoft Azure.