WASHINGTON – The Pentagon yesterday said it scrapped a massive US$10 billion (RM41.5 billion) cloud computing contract, sidestepping a bitter dispute between Amazon and Microsoft over allegations of political bias that swayed the bidding.
A Defence Department statement said the Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (Jedi) contract was cancelled because it no longer meets current needs, and will start a process for a new “multi-cloud/multivendor” computing contract.
Microsoft won the contract in late 2019, sparking a challenge by Amazon on grounds that vengeful politics by former president Donald Trump may have improperly influenced the outcome.
Officials said instead of going forward with the deal in the face of litigation, the government will start over with the aim of getting the most up-to-date technology.
“Jedi, conceived with noble intent, was developed at a time when the department’s needs were different,” said Defence Department spokesman John Sherman during a press briefing.
“Now, we want to leverage multiple cloud environments.”
Sherman equated arming the United States “war fighters” with cutting-edge, 21st century cloud computing capabilities to providing top armour or weaponry, saying the technology landscape has shifted since the Jedi contract was stalled by litigation.
A statement said Pentagon will seek proposals from Amazon and Microsoft on a new contract, noting that the two vendors appear at the moment to be the only cloud service providers capable of meeting the department’s requirements.
Staying on mission
The 10-year Jedi programme was designed see all military branches sharing information in a cloud-based system boosted by artificial intelligence.
Amazon alleged it was shut out of the deal because of Trump’s vendetta against the company and its chief executive Jeff Bezos.
Sherman maintained that it is urgent to move ahead and “the overriding factor is not what may have happened in previous administrations; what was said or not said, the litigation”.
Amazon had been considered the lead contender to provide technology for Jedi, with Amazon Web Services dominating the cloud computing arena and the company already providing classified servers for other government agencies, including the CIA.
Amazon argued in court documents that the Pentagon’s choice of Microsoft was mystifying if not for Trump’s repeated “expressed determination to, in the words of the president himself, ‘screw Amazon’”.
Microsoft will be able to submit a bill to the government for terminating the Jedi contract, the amount of which has not been determined, according to Sherman.
US defence officials will reach out to Amazon and Microsoft to solicit bids for parts of the new cloud contract, which Sherman said will have an overall value in the billions, without specifying an amount.
Defence officials also plan to reach out to Google, Oracle, IBM and other computing titans to assess whether they are able to enter the bidding for some of the jobs.
The department aims to begin awarding contracts early next year, with a hope of having systems starting to deploy by 2025. – AFP, July 7, 2021
