Following a statement from President Trump about bias in favor of Amazon, the Pentagon has temporarily suspended its $10 billion cloud-computing competition. The process will now be reviewed by new Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and a spokesman said “no decision will be made on the program until he completes his review.”
The Pentagon wants a single vendor for its JEDI cloud-computing system, which will house personnel and intelligence data, allowing it to better compete with China in AI technology. Names like IBM and Oracle, but the Pentagon has narrowed it down to just two vendors: Microsoft and Amazon.
Oracle tried to stay in the game by telling Congress that the bidding process was unfair. The company's complaints reached a group of representatives, who asked Trump to postpone the competition until the Pentagon examines any irregularities or conflicts of interest.
In response, Trump asked Pentagon officials to review the process. “They say it was not a competitive offer”, he said on July 18. «Some of the world’s biggest companies are protesting about this … I will ask them to examine it very carefully to see what is happening because I had very little information, while there were so many complaints».
Trump has previously criticized both Amazon and Bezos (owner of the Washington Post), but the issues surrounding the JEDI contract have been more pressing than the president. In particular, rivals have raised concerns about meetings held by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis with AWS’s Teresa Carlson and Jeff Bezos himself in 2017. The Guardian also discovered that an Amazon VP had contacts with US government agencies about creating a purchasing portal.
In July, however, a court ruled that Oracle's bid did not meet the government requirements and that the Government's Accountability Office found that the bid was fair.
And while some U.S. lawmakers want to stop the bidding, others want it to continue. “We believe it is essential to our national security to proceed with the award and implementation of this contract as quickly as possible,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, on behalf of the House Armed Services Committee.
