Amazon Web Services has opened a direct, private networking path between its cloud and Microsoft Azure, completing a multicloud interconnect that now spans all three non-AWS major cloud service providers. Customers can provision private, high-speed connectivity between AWS and Microsoft Azure on demand through AWS Interconnect, multicloud, with the Azure leg entering public preview on August 31, 2026.
What the service does
Previously, when interconnecting workloads across multiple cloud service providers, customers had to take a “do-it-yourself” multicloud approach, leading to complexities of building and managing global multi-layered networks at scale.
AWS Interconnect, multicloud is described as the first purpose-built product of its kind, allowing customers to quickly provision resilient, scalable private connections to other cloud providers.
AWS and Microsoft describe a managed private cloud-to-cloud connection delivered through AWS Interconnect, multicloud and Azure Multicloud Interconnect, coordinated through an OpenAPI-based interoperability specification. Customers can use their existing cloud management interfaces throughout.
On the AWS side, the service runs on Direct Connect. Azure Multicloud Interconnect runs on ExpressRoute, where a customer creates an ExpressRoute circuit with a Multicloud Interconnect port type, then exchanges an activation key with AWS.
With Azure connectivity now in public preview, AWS Interconnect, multicloud spans all three non-AWS major cloud service providers, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, giving customers the same simplified, on-demand networking experience between AWS and each of those platforms.
Preview limits and roadmap
The service is available in preview with Microsoft Azure in four AWS regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Europe (Frankfurt). Bandwidth is limited to 1 Gbps during the preview.
The preview ships with no service-level agreement and covers just four AWS regions paired with four Azure regions. The AWS-side preview connection is free for the preview period. At general availability, the companies plan to support up to 100 Gbps.
AWS and Microsoft say they will continue to expand regional availability and increase bandwidth options based on customer feedback.
How the standard evolved
AWS introduced AWS Interconnect, multicloud in preview at re:Invent 2025, publishing an open API specification for network interoperability that established a framework any provider can adopt. AWS made the service generally available in April 2026, with Google Cloud as the first launch partner.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure entered preview in May 2026. OCI reached general availability in July 2026, followed by Azure’s public preview in August.
The Azure addition is notable because AWS and Azure together represent the two dominant platforms in enterprise IT. Flexera’s 2026 State of the Cloud report, based on 753 respondents, found that 84 percent of enterprise respondents were running some or significant workloads on AWS, while 82 percent said the same for Azure.
Why it matters for enterprises
Customers have been adopting multicloud strategies while migrating more applications to the cloud, doing so for reasons including interoperability requirements, the freedom to choose technology that best suits their needs, and the ability to build and deploy applications on any environment with greater ease and speed.
AWS noted that organizations often end up operating across multiple cloud platforms through acquisitions, software deployments spanning customer environments, and regulatory requirements.
The development follows a broader market shift toward genuine multi-vendor cloud architectures. The growing complexity of managing those environments has already driven significant investment in AI-driven infrastructure tooling, and separately, analysts tracking enterprise spending have recorded a sharp redistribution of cloud AI budgets across providers over the past two years.
Establishing resilient, high-performance private connectivity between clouds has historically required customers to navigate complex and diverse physical infrastructure, multiple connectivity providers, and invest weeks or months of manual provisioning. The new service aims to replace that with a managed, on-demand alternative.
The service remains in public preview, meaning it is not yet a generally available offering with a complete pricing, regional, and contractual picture. The AWS, Azure offering is not yet a generally available multicloud backbone with a complete public feature, pricing, regional, and contractual picture. Its value today is as a tightly controlled evaluation path: one that can validate architecture and workload behavior, but not justify production or regulated-workload assumptions.
