For twenty years, switching cloud or database providers was the corporate equivalent of getting out of a bad lease early technically possible, prohibitively expensive, and designed that way on purpose. Brussels just changed the terms. We sat down with Dr. Naveen Singh, founder of decentralized database company Inery, to unpack what the EU Data Act actually demands.
“Switching costs were a feature, not a bug at least for the vendor,” says Dr. Naveen Singh, founder of Inery. “Proprietary storage formats, closed query engines, non-standard APIs none of that was accidental. It was retention by design.” Put plainly, he says, it’s the enterprise version of a familiar annoyance. “Think of it like being stuck with a phone charger that only works with one brand. It works fine, right up until the day you want to switch and suddenly the accessory nobody thought twice about is the whole reason you can’t leave.”
That era, Dr. Singh argues, is ending not because cloud providers had a change of heart, but because regulators forced their hand. The EU Data Act, fully applicable since September 12, 2025, has quietly become one of the most consequential pieces of infrastructure regulation in recent memory. Its switching and interoperability provisions Chapter VI, Articles 23–31 have moved lock-in out of procurement meetings and into the architecture review.
What the Act Demands
“This goes further than portability as a courtesy,” Dr. Singh says. “It makes portability a baseline obligation, with teeth.” Providers must strip out the contractual, technical, and financial barriers to switching, with structured exit support required.
KEY DEADLINES
September 12, 2025 Data Act fully applicable; notice periods capped at two months
Through 2026 Interoperability requirements phase in
January 12, 2027 Switching charges banned outright
September 2027 Even pre-existing contracts must comply
Source: Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, Official Journal of the EU
Several member states have floated fines reaching 3–4% of global turnover for non-compliance. “Portability isn’t goodwill anymore,” Dr. Singh says. “It’s a floor, not a ceiling.”
The Second-Order Effect
“The Act removes the economic rationale for architecting around a single vendor,” Dr. Singh says. “The businesses in the strongest position aren’t bolting on export interfaces to hit a deadline they’re the ones whose infrastructure was interoperable from day one.”
He reaches for an Indian comparison. “Before mobile number portability, switching operators in India meant losing your number and telling everyone you’d changed it so people didn’t switch, even when unhappy. The day porting arrived, that friction disappeared. That’s exactly what’s happening to enterprise data. The data was always the ‘number.’ Once it moves with you by default, vendors compete on service, not on exit cost.”
Where Decentralized Infrastructure Fits
This is the terrain Dr. Singh built Inery around. “There’s no lock to pick if there was never a single point of custody to begin with.” He’s careful not to overstate it: “The Data Act doesn’t ban centralized providers the hyperscalers will adapt. What it removes is the structural advantage that made lock-in profitable. It’s no longer about who makes leaving hardest. It’s about whose infrastructure was never designed to trap you.”
Where India’s DPDP Act Stands
India’s DPDP Act, passed in 2023, finally had its rules notified in November 2025, phasing in to full compliance by May 2027. But Dr. Singh cautions against reading it as India’s Data Act equivalent. “GDPR was about consent. The Data Act is about switching a layer above that. The DPDP Act is still solving GDPR’s problem, not handing anyone a right to take their data elsewhere.” His bet: “India ends up in a similar place eventually. Organizations building for DPDP compliance now would be smart to build the switching piece in early, rather than doing it twice.”
What Leaders Should Do Now
Audit before January 2027. Switching charges are banned outright from January 12, 2027. “Know today which contracts would survive a functional-equivalence test don’t find out during the audit.”
Treat portability as architecture, not a clause. Retrofitting export APIs later is expensive and brittle; open formats meet the Act’s bar by default.
Watch the EU as a bellwether. “GDPR’s fingerprints are already in the DPDP Act. Infrastructure built for Data Act-style portability today won’t need rebuilding when equivalent rules land elsewhere.”
Dr. Singh doesn’t call the Data Act radical. “Nobody needed convincing lock-in was bad for customers. What changed is it’s now enforceable, on a timeline, with real penalties. It’s a redirection of the whole incentive structure toward infrastructure that’s open by default which is where it probably should have started.”
Dr. Naveen Singh is the founder of Inery, a decentralized database company focused on data sovereignty and interoperable infrastructure.
