Pentagon Cancels $10B JEDI Contract, Creates Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability

The Defense Department cancels the controversial $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) cloud computing contract previously awarded to Microsoft in 2019, ending two years of bitter litigation with Amazon Web Services. The Pentagon announces a new multi-vendor procurement approach called the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), valued at up to $9 billion through 2028, initially soliciting proposals from both Amazon and Microsoft as “the only companies at the moment that can meet the military’s requirements.”

The Pentagon officially states the cancellation is due to “evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances” that made the original single-vendor JEDI contract obsolete. However, the decision follows extensive litigation from Amazon, which had argued that the 2019 contract award resulted from political interference by President Donald Trump rather than merit-based evaluation. Amazon had pursued testimony from Trump and presented evidence of presidential influence in the procurement process.

In November 2021, the Defense Department expands the JWCC solicitation to include Google and Oracle alongside Amazon and Microsoft, acknowledging that four major cloud providers now possess the technical capabilities to support military operations. By December 2022, all four companies—Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle—are awarded positions on the $9 billion JWCC contract, which enables the Department of Defense to procure enterprise-wide cloud services across all classification levels and security domains.

The JWCC program represents both an acknowledgment of the JEDI contract’s political corruption and a deepening of military dependence on commercial cloud infrastructure. While the multi-vendor approach theoretically reduces reliance on a single provider, it consolidates critical military infrastructure among four major technology corporations, creating an oligopoly of defense cloud services. The contract provides these companies with unprecedented access to sensitive military data, operational planning, and defense AI systems.

This concentration of military cloud capabilities raises significant national security concerns about vendor lock-in, data security, corporate influence over military technology development, and the privatization of core defense infrastructure. The JWCC program embeds commercial corporations deeply into military operations across all classification levels—from unclassified to top secret—blurring the boundaries between corporate profit motives and national security imperatives while creating dependencies that may be difficult or impossible to reverse.