Microsoft, AWS prepare for new Pentagon $10 billion Cloud contract

Washington: After witnessing a bitter war over the $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) Cloud computing contract, the Pentagon has announced a new cloud initiative that replaces the ill-fated JEDI contract.

Pentagon had to cancel the $10 billion JEDI contract that was given to Microsoft in 2019, leaving the favourite Amazon out of the race during the Donald Trump administration.

Now, all Cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle have been invited to bid for the 'Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability' (JWCC) Cloud contract.

"The government anticipates awarding two contracts -- one to Amazon Web Services AWS) and one to Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) -- but intends to award to all Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that demonstrate the capability to meet DoD's requirements," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The JEDI contract was meant to modernise the Pentagon's IT operations for services rendered over 10 years. After Microsoft was awarded the decade-long contract in October 2019, AWS had filed a bid protest directly to DoD, challenging the decision.

Microsoft had said that it won the JEDI contract because the US Department of Defense found that it offered "significantly superior" technology at a better price.

Amazon believed that the re-evaluation process was highly flawed, and subject to undue pressure from the former US President Trump.

Not only JEDI, Microsoft and Amazon had also locked horns over another $10 billion contract by the US National Security Agency (NSA) won by AWS.