The Pentagon has split a six-year $9 billion contract for cloud computing services among Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google, Oracle Corp (NYSE: ORCL), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT).
The U.S. Department of Defense's move came a year after scrapping a previous contract marred by accusations of political interference by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump and bogged down by legal challenges, the Financial Times reports.
The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability succeeded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (Jedi), which aimed to build a large common commercial cloud for the entire DoD.
The Trump administration wanted to concentrate the cloud computing program under one provider.
The project is estimated to be completed by June 2028.
The DoD initially awarded Microsoft the contract in October 2018, but legal challenges delayed its implementation.
Last summer, the Pentagon canceled the initial Jedi contract.
Amazon had charged Trump with exploiting his animosity against Jeff Bezos.
Oracle said the single-vendor contract was unfair, while Google had withdrawn its bid in 2018 following a staff outcry for working with the DoD.
