JEDI Contract

The United Nations Department of Defence is reconsidering its decision to award the 10 billion USD contract to Microsoft.

About the Project

The JEDI or Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure project is to be the US defence department’s first war cloud. It is a 10 billion USD project that will extend over 10 years and will store a large number of classified data.

Purpose

The JEDI project will help the US military improve its communication with personnel on field. It will enhance their fighting and planning capacities using artificial intelligence. The project will provide “enterprise level, commercial Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) to support Department of Defense business and mission operations.”

Current Issue

Amazon is considered as the frontrunner to landing the contract. However, the government had decided to award it to Microsoft. This led to accusations that the US President had interfered in the decision due to his dislike of Amazon, its CEO (Jeff Bezos) and his newspaper, The Washington Post. The military recently announced its decision to reconsider the contract’s award.