Pentagon splits $9 billion cloud computing deal among tech giants

The Pentagon has split a $9 billion cloud computing services deal between Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft. A year earlier it had abandoned an earlier contract marred by allegations of political interference by former US President Donald Trump's administration and stalled by legal challenges.
The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability succeeds the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (Jedi), which was intended to build a large shared commercial cloud for the entire Department of Defense. While the Trump administration wanted to concentrate the cloud computing program with a single vendor, Joe Biden's administration chose to split it among multiple groups, as do many private sector companies.
According to a Pentagon statement, the project is expected to be completed by June 2028. The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability "will provide the DoD with the ability to purchase commercial cloud capabilities and services directly from commercial cloud providers, at deployment speed and at all classification levels," according to the Pentagon.
The DoD originally awarded the contract to Microsoft in October 2018, but legal challenges delayed its implementation. Last summer, the Pentagon canceled the original Jedi contract, saying it no longer served its needs due to changing requirements and improvements in the industry, and that it would seek bids from more companies.
Amazon had accused Trump of pressuring the Pentagon to "cheat" its founder Jeff Bezos and award the contract to the competitor because the former president harbored personal animosity. Oracle had claimed the single-vendor deal was unfair, while Google withdrew its offer in 2018 after staff outcry over its cooperation with the Department of Defense.
Last November, the Department of Defense officially tendered Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Microsoft to replace the ill-fated Jedi project. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The $9 billion deal will span six years. Big tech corporations have bid for the job, hoping it could lead to decades of work in a fast-growing sector.
