‘Amazon lawsuit will not delay $10b JEDI contract’

WASHINGTON: The lawsuit filed by Amazon challenging a $10 billion US military cloud computing contract awarded to Microsoft will not delay implementation of the project, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.

Amazon has alleged that President Donald Trump abused the power of his office to deny the company the massive contract in late October.

"We will deal with Amazon's legal actions. I cannot comment on those right now," said Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord. "But I will tell you we are moving right now forward with the JEDI contract."

The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence. "We actually have a kick-off event with Microsoft tomorrow (Wednesday) morning," Lord said.