The Pentagon on Friday picked Microsoft over Amazon for a $10 billion cloud computing contract called JEDI.

The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, also known as JEDI, had initiated a showdown among Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Google for the right to transform the American military’s cloud computing systems.

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Bidding of such a massive governmental contract has attracted more attention than usual, as it is central to Pentagon’s efforts to modernize its technology. Another reason why the contract’s decision grabbed all the attention because there were speculations that Amazon would bag the deal. Oracle also pushed its bid and even challenged the bid process in court, but lost.

The announcement was made by the Department of Defence, saying that the process was fair and followed procurement guidelines.

Under the system, classified US military data will be stored and processed, that will further help them to plan and speed up their war capabilities with the help of the AI.

Meanwhile, employees of Amazon and Microsoft and even Google criticised their respective companies for engaging in business with the government.

(With input from agencies)