The Pentagon awards cloud contracts to Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle

The Department of Defense said Wednesday it had awarded lucrative cloud computing contracts to four companies: Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. The contracts run through 2028 and could be valued at $9 billion, the Pentagon said in a press release.

The work is for a new cloud architecture called Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, which would provide the Department of Defense with cloud services “across all security domains and classification levels.”

The decision to award contracts to four companies was a game changer for the Pentagon, three years after it awarded a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft. This contract, for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, known as JEDI, has become part of a legal battle over allegations that President Donald J. Trump interfered in a process that favored Microsoft over its competitor competitor, Amazon.

“This is the biggest Cloud Beltway deal in history and it was a key win for all software vendors in this multi-year soap opera,” said Dan Ives, technical analyst at Wedbush Securities, in an email. “It’s nice to finally finish this chapter and finally get a cloud deal for the Pentagon after years of a rollercoaster ride.”

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2021, the Department of Defense said it would not move forward with the Microsoft contract because it “was developed at a time when the department’s needs were different and our cloud conversation less mature. “.

Instead, the Pentagon said it would seek bids from multiple tech companies for the joint combat cloud capability. While market researchers indicated that Microsoft and Amazon would be best suited to meet the needs, officials said they would also contact IBM, Oracle and Google.

Wednesday’s announcement of the flagship government contract was a big win for a wider range of tech companies. The largest of these had pushed aggressively for the earlier JEDI contract, which was seen as the way to transform and modernize the military’s cloud computing systems. Oracle was among the companies that lobbied for the Pentagon to award cloud computing and other government contracts to several companies.