Microsoft beats Amazon for $10 billion Pentagon contract
SANFRANCISCO: The Pentagon said on Friday it is awarding a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft, following a highly scrutinised bidding process which Amazon had been favoured to win.
The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure programme, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence.
“The National Defence Strategy dictates that we must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernised technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform,” defence department chief information officer Dana Deasy said in a release. “This award is an important step in execution of the digital modernisation strategy.”
Amazon was considered the lead contender to provide technology for JEDI, with its Amazon Web Services dominating the cloud computing arena and the company already providing classified servers for other government outfits including the CIA.
But the Pentagon earlier this year delayed awarding the contract, saying the process would be reviewed by US defence secretary Mark Esper.
Esper was selected by US President Donald Trump, who has lashed out at Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.
In July, Trump said he had heard “complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM” over the JEDI bidding process.
Amazon said late on Friday that it was “surprised about this conclusion”. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.