UNB News :
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday he was certain that the awarding of a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was done fairly.
The Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft in late October, and Amazon said there was “unmistakable bias” on the government’s part and it intended to challenge the decision in court.
Esper recused himself from the contract decision because his son had worked for one of the other unsuccessful bidders.
“I am confident that it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence,” Esper said at a news conference in Seoul, South Korea.
Amazon’s competitive bid for the “war cloud” project drew criticism from President Donald Trump and its business rivals. The project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another
In a statement Thursday, Amazon said “numerous aspects” of the bidding process involved “clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias.” It did not elaborate on those allegations but said “it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. A Defense Department spokeswoman would only say that the Pentagon won’t speculate on potential litigation.
JEDI will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.
Amazon was long thought to be the front-runner for the contract. Its Amazon Web Services division is far ahead of second-place Microsoft in cloud computing, and Amazon has experience handling highly classified government data
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday he was certain that the awarding of a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was done fairly.
The Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft in late October, and Amazon said there was “unmistakable bias” on the government’s part and it intended to challenge the decision in court.
Esper recused himself from the contract decision because his son had worked for one of the other unsuccessful bidders.
“I am confident that it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence,” Esper said at a news conference in Seoul, South Korea.
Amazon’s competitive bid for the “war cloud” project drew criticism from President Donald Trump and its business rivals. The project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another
In a statement Thursday, Amazon said “numerous aspects” of the bidding process involved “clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias.” It did not elaborate on those allegations but said “it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. A Defense Department spokeswoman would only say that the Pentagon won’t speculate on potential litigation.
JEDI will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.
Amazon was long thought to be the front-runner for the contract. Its Amazon Web Services division is far ahead of second-place Microsoft in cloud computing, and Amazon has experience handling highly classified government data
