Report: Pentagon may cancel JEDI cloud computing contract amid legal battle and political criticism

The Pentagon is considering “pulling the plug” on the $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Journal cited recent complaints from lawmakers about the project. Some suggest that the Pentagon should ditch JEDI and spread out the contract to multiple vendors.

The massive project to migrate the Pentagon’s computing infrastructure and data to the cloud has faced several roadblocks after Microsoft won the contract in 2019. Amazon, a frontrunner for the contract, has mounted a legal battle since then. It blames former President Trump for improperly influencing the DoD, among other accusations.

Last month a federal judge declined to dismiss allegations that Trump interfered with the contract, allowing Amazon to continue pursuing its argument in court.

The DoD sent a memo to Congress on Jan. 28 that seemed to suggest a lengthy deposition process would make the JEDI project untenable.

“These motions will be complex and elongate the timeline significantly,” the memo read. “The prospect of such a lengthy litigation process might bring the future of the JEDI Cloud procurement into question. Under this scenario, the DoD CIO would reassess the strategy going forward. Whatever the outcome, the Department’s unsolved capability gaps would still remain for enterprise wide, commercial cloud services – at all three classification levels – stretching from the homefront to the tactical edge – at scale.”

We’ve reached out to Amazon and Microsoft for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

Update: Here’s a statement from Microsoft:

“JEDI was developed to meet a critical national security need. We agree with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Justice that prolonged litigation is harmful and has delayed getting this technology to our military service members who need it. We stand ready to support the Defense Department to deliver on JEDI and other mission critical DoD projects, like our recent partnership with the U.S. Army to develop the innovative IVAS headsets. We have served as a committed partner to the DoD for more than 40 years and we intend to continue this relationship in the years to come to ensure our service members have the technology they deserve.” — Microsoft spokesperson