Massive DoD JEDI Cloud Project Under Review but Moving Forward

By

The Pentagon has put the brakes on what could potentially be one of the largest cloud contracts ever awarded, but has been careful to say the project will move forward in a timely manner. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which has the potential to cost $10 billion for services over a period of up to 10 years, will bring the Pentagon into the cloud just as China is scrambling to roll out its own military cloud systems.

The JEDI contract was originally slated to be awarded last September, with Amazon and Microsoft in contention for the award, while other companies like Oracle and IBM failed to meet all the required criteria. But the Pentagon announced earlier this month that Defense Secretary Mark Esper would be reviewing the project, in an effort to fully understand the cloud and the complexities of the proposed JEDI program.

“What we’re going to do over the next several weeks is we are actually going to bring people in to these sessions,” said Dana Deasy, CIO of the Department of Defense. “So we’re going to bring warfighters in. We’re going to bring the military services in. We’re going to bring combatant command participants in. For example, U.S. Cyber Command, and we’re going to bring technical and legal experts in, as well.”

Deasy stated that the contract will not be awarded this month, as the Pentagon doesn’t want to rush into such a massive and important undertaking. However the pressure is on, now that China is racing forward with its own cloud initiatives. According to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), the DoD is keen to move forward with the JEDI project to keep up with U.S. adversaries. Shanahan also stressed the importance of AI in the JEDI project and how enterprise-scale cloud computing will transform the future of warfare.

“If I am a warfighter, I want as much data as you could possibly give me,” said Shanahan. “Let me use my sort of algorithms to sort through it as fast as machine speeds, let the machines do that but the humans think, the cognitive piece of this. It’s really hard for me to do that without an enterprise cloud solution.”

Shanahan said the JAIC as well as Project Maven, an AI-enabled program designed to help Air Force analysts better utilize full-motion video surveillance, would be among the first projects to migrate to JEDI.

“Enterprise cloud provides a solution for the deployment of software and AI, enabling instantaneous and continuous deployment of updates to a global enterprise,” said Shanahan. “A single instance of an AI application can be used by an entire enterprise and updated for all at the same time. An enterprise cloud allows AI cycle speeds that can be measured in updates and across an entire enterprise in hours as opposed to in months, six months or maybe even a year.”




Edited by Maurice Nagle
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

TechZone360 Contributing Editor

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

How to Protect Your Website From LDAP Injection Attacks

By: Contributing Writer    3/12/2024

Prevent LDAP injection attacks with regular testing, limiting access privileges, sanitizing user input, and applying the proper encoding functions.

Read More

Azure Cost Optimization: 5 Things You Can Do to Save on Azure

By: Contributing Writer    3/7/2024

Azure cost optimization is the process of managing and reducing the overall cost of using Azure. It involves understanding the resources you're using,…

Read More

Massive Meta Apps and Services Outage Impacts Users Worldwide

By: Alex Passett    3/5/2024

Meta's suite of apps and services are experiencing major global outages on Super Tuesday 2024.

Read More

The Role of Technology in Shaping the Future of Affiliate Marketing

By: Contributing Writer    3/5/2024

In the current rapidly growing digital world, affiliate marketing is still one of the most effective ways for businesses to increase their visibility …

Read More

The Steps You Can Take To Improve Customer Service For Your Business

By: Contributing Writer    3/5/2024

When you're in a competitive market, providing exceptional customer service is crucial for the success and growth of your business. Good customer serv…

Read More