Pentagon to select Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Oracle for JWCC contract

The Department of Defense has issued a formal solicitation for Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Oracle to bid for its Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability JWCC contract.

The JWCC contract is a replacement for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure JEDI contract, which aims to give the military better access to data from remote locations using cloud technology. The JWCC allows the Pentagon to select multiple cloud providers, unlike JEDI.

The JEDI contract was expected to be worth $10 billion over 10 years and was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019 and was subsequently protested by Amazon Web Services, who claimed that the Pentagon's process was flawed, unfair, and improperly influenced by President Donald Trump's dislike of Amazon and its then-CEO Jeff Bezos. The agency said in July that it no longer met its needs due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances. The Department of Defense expects a multi-billion dollar ceiling will be required, despite the fact that the value of JWCC contracts is unknown.

The Pentagon intends to award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity IDIQ contracts to all Cloud Service Providers CSPs that demonstrate the capability to meet DoD s requirements. The General Service Administration's notice states that AWS and Microsoft are the only ones currently capable of meeting those requirements, including providing cloud services at all levels of national security classification.

A Department of Defense spokeswoman told FOX Business that the award timeframe will be determined by the acquisition schedule developed by the agency, with a goal of awarding IDIQ contracts in the third quarter of fiscal year 2022. The IDIQ contract is expected to have a three-year base period and two yearlong option periods.

Deborah Hellinger, Oracle spokesman, told FOX Business that the software giant is delighted to be included in the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability RFP. Hellinger said that we are committed to deliver the highest level of security, performance and value in enterprise cloud applications and cloud infrastructure in support of the DoD's Warfighter mission.

If given the opportunity, the tech giant would absolutely bid on the JWCC contract, according to a Google spokesman.

If chosen as one of the compliant vendors, we will work with the DoD to modernize our operations, following the process we have in place for working with our customers, including the processes that we have developed around our AI Principles, according to Google.