Pentagon awards US$9b in cloud computing discounts to 4 companies

WASHINGTON, Dec 8 — The Pentagon introduced Wednesday it has awarded US$9 billion (about RM40 billion) in cloud computing contracts to Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle, soon after scrapping a prior deal throughout a dispute amongst two of people corporations.

The Joint Warfighting Cloud Functionality (JWCC) is a “multiple-award agreement motor vehicle that will provide the DoD the possibility to obtain business cloud abilities and providers directly from the professional Cloud Assistance Providers,” the Pentagon mentioned in a statement.

Defense Section spokesperson Commander Jessica McNulty told AFP that JWCC is “composed of 4 contracts with a shared ceiling of US$9 billion.”

In July last calendar year, the Pentagon claimed it had scrapped the US$10 billion Joint Company Protection Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract, sidestepping a bitter dispute involving Amazon and Microsoft.

The Protection Department reported the deal was cancelled because it no for a longer period satisfied recent requirements, and that it would commence a course of action for a new “multi-cloud/multi-vendor” computing deal.

Microsoft in late 2019 received the agreement, sparking a problem by Amazon on grounds that vengeful politics by then-president Donald Trump may well have improperly affected the outcome.

Amazon alleged it was shut out of the deal due to the fact of what it called Trump’s vendetta from the firm and its chief govt Jeff Bezos.

It experienced been regarded as the guide contender to offer technological know-how for JEDI, with Amazon Internet Expert services dominating the cloud computing arena and the organization previously supplying categorized servers for other government companies including the CIA.

Officials explained at the time that as a substitute of heading ahead with the offer in the deal with of litigation, the government would start off more than with the purpose of obtaining the most up-to-day technological innovation. — AFP