Nearly nine in 10 businesses cannot migrate critical workloads away from their largest cloud or infrastructure provider within three weeks, according to new research from Leaseweb. The company sees these infrastructure dependencies as an opportunity to expand its presence among U.S. managed service providers (MSPs) and channel partners.
The Leaseweb Digital Independence Survey 2026 found that 89% of businesses face migration barriers, while 55% would need more than 3 months to move critical workloads or could not move them at all.
Based on responses from 800 executives across the U.S. and Europe, the findings underscore growing concerns about cloud lock-in, infrastructure costs, and data sovereignty as AI adoption accelerates.
For Netherlands-based Leaseweb, which operates 28 data centers globally, those pressures are shaping a U.S. channel strategy focused on giving MSPs greater flexibility in deploying and managing customer workloads.
Leaseweb targets U.S. MSPs with infrastructure alternatives
In an interview with Channel Insider, Tim Mandell, sales director for Leaseweb USA, said the company is shifting away from transactional infrastructure sales toward helping MSPs evaluate workloads, customer requirements, and long-term costs.
“Not every workload belongs in the same place,” Mandell said, acknowledging that hyperscalers remain appropriate for certain applications while other workloads may benefit from private cloud or dedicated infrastructure.
The company’s strategy centers on giving MSPs alternatives without requiring them to abandon existing cloud environments.
Mandell argued that many providers default to familiar hyperscaler services without consistently reevaluating whether those environments deliver the best margins or customer outcomes.
“Are they really doing the right thing by their customer? Or are they selling what they know?” he asked.
Leaseweb is positioning its privately held business, infrastructure portfolio, and emphasis on data sovereignty as differentiators for partners concerned about customer trust and operational control.
Mandell said MSPs have generally been receptive to the message, although many initially prefer testing an alternative infrastructure model through a limited use case.
AI adoption could increase cloud provider dependency
Leaseweb’s research indicates that infrastructure dependency could become more pronounced as AI adoption accelerates.
Globally, 79% of surveyed executives expect AI to increase their reliance on a small number of technology providers over the next three years. Among U.S. respondents, that figure rises to 89%.
Meanwhile, 91% of U.S. respondents reported taking action to reduce reliance on a particular technology or infrastructure provider in response to geopolitical challenges.
Mandell said concerns about proprietary data, AI workloads, and infrastructure costs are creating opportunities for MSPs to introduce private environments and more deliberate workload placement strategies.
However, infrastructure procurement is becoming another challenge.
Mandell described rising memory and hardware costs, constrained capacity, and longer procurement cycles as significant considerations heading into 2027.
“This is not a just-in-time environment,” he said, urging providers to prepare for potentially lengthy equipment lead times and develop contingency plans.
Cloud migration and infrastructure costs create MSP opportunities
For MSPs, these developments could create new consulting and managed infrastructure opportunities, particularly around cloud cost optimization, workload migration, data sovereignty, and AI deployment.
They also introduce risks. Moving workloads between providers requires technical expertise, financial planning, and careful consideration of application dependencies.
Leaseweb’s research found that 73% of respondents would pay at least 11% more for greater infrastructure independence, suggesting some customers may prioritize flexibility over the lowest immediate price.
For channel partners, the opportunity may increasingly lie in helping customers understand those trade-offs rather than recommending a single infrastructure platform.
Mandell believes that shift requires MSPs to reassess their technology stacks, procurement assumptions, and vendor relationships before changing market conditions force more expensive decisions.
His message to partners is to move beyond simply adding infrastructure capacity and reconsider what customers actually need their environments to deliver.
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