Amazon Launches AWS Secret Region for CIA and Intelligence Community

Amazon Web Services unveils a dedicated cloud computing region specifically designed to host classified government data at the “Secret” classification level, serving the CIA and all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. This AWS Secret Region operates as an air-gapped, isolated infrastructure separate from the public internet, enabling intelligence agencies to “host, analyze and run applications on government data classified at the secret level” through the $600 million C2S contract established with the CIA in 2013.

The launch represents a major expansion of Amazon’s intelligence infrastructure footprint. While AWS had operated a Top Secret Region for three years prior (limited to intelligence agencies only), this new Secret Region is available to all government agencies, dramatically expanding Amazon’s role in classified government operations. According to Teresa Carlson, VP of AWS Worldwide Public Sector, the company now provides the “U.S. intelligence community a commercial cloud capability across all classification levels: unclassified, sensitive, secret and top secret.”

CIA CIO John Edwards endorsed the launch, stating that the AWS Secret Region would have “the same material impact on the IC at the Secret level that C2S has had at Top Secret.” Edwards revealed that the CIA had “put an entire Amazon cloud region on our space, in our premises,” acknowledging the risk but calling it “amazing.” This admission reveals the extraordinary level of physical and digital integration between a commercial corporation and the nation’s premier intelligence agency.

The Secret Region launch consolidates Amazon’s position as the dominant commercial cloud provider for the intelligence community, creating unprecedented corporate control over classified government infrastructure. AWS also established an Intelligence Community Marketplace, allowing intelligence agencies to evaluate and purchase software from technology companies, further embedding commercial interests into intelligence operations. This deep integration raises critical concerns about corporate influence over intelligence priorities, data security, potential conflicts of interest, and the privatization of core national security functions. The dependence of 17 intelligence agencies on a single commercial vendor creates significant national security risks related to monopolization, vendor lock-in, and the blurring of boundaries between corporate profit motives and intelligence community operations.