Pentagon splits $9 billion cloud contract among Google, Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft

[December 08, 2022]  (Reuters) - The Pentagon awarded $9 billion worth of cloud computing contracts to Alphabet Inc's Google, Amazon Web Services Inc, Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp <ORCL.N> on Wednesday.  

U.S. flag hangs during a ceremony to honor victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S., September 11, 2022. REUTERS/Cheriss May

The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) is the multi-cloud successor to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), which was an IT modernization project to build a large, common commercial cloud for the Department of Defense.

The separate contracts, which carry a notional top line of $9 billion, run until 2028 and will provide the Department of Defense with enterprise-wide, globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels, the contract announcement said.

U.S. Navy Commander Jessica McNulty, a Department of Defense spokesperson, said in a statement the JWCC was a multiple-award procurement composed of four contracts with a shared ceiling of $9 billion.

The move comes months after the Pentagon had delayed its decision to award an enterprise-wide JWCC contract.

The Pentagon attempted to move to the cloud several years ago using the JEDI concept, but the proposal died after litigation stopped the procurement process.

This deal could put the military more in line with private-sector companies, many of whom split up their cloud computing work among multiple vendors.

(Reporting by Nathan Gomes in Bengaluru and Mike Stone in Washington D.C.; Editing by Stephen Coates and Gerry Doyle)

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