89% of businesses say they couldn't move critical workloads within three weeks

Most businesses say they could not quickly move critical workloads away from their main cloud provider, according to research by Leaseweb reported by TechRadar. The findings point to vendor lock-in challenges, though the survey also found that many business leaders feel in control of their data.

Nine in 10 businesses (89%) said they could not migrate business-critical workloads within three weeks. More than half (55%) said migration would take longer than three months or would not be possible. The survey covered 800 C-suite leaders; three in four (76%) said they had “complete” or “high” control over their ability to move data to another provider.

Leaseweb said applications built for a provider’s infrastructure can be difficult to move, even when customers retain control of their data. The Netherlands had the longest reported average migration time, at 4.7 months.

Four in five business leaders (79%) expect AI adoption to worsen provider dependence, as investment in specific AI tools could tie businesses to a small number of providers. Leaseweb also said four in five businesses (78%) had taken action to reduce reliance on a provider. The US had the highest share taking action, at 91%.

Businesses surveyed were prepared to pay an average of 16% more for greater control over their infrastructure. Leaseweb co-CEO Lex Boost said leaders should address provider dependencies before pricing changes or geopolitical shifts force them to act.