The US Department of Defence (DoD) cancelled a massive Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract with Microsoft, with the organisation set to consult on systems meeting updated requirements.

JEDI was widely reported to be worth up to $10 billion and was the subject of a pending legal challenge from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which complained about the award of the contract to Microsoft.

The DoD stated the JEDI project no longer met its needs due to “evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy and industry advances”.

Evolution of the cloud ecosystem within its organisation and changing user requirements were cited as contributing to it reneging on the deal.

Following the cancellation of the contract, the DoD announced it would begin negotiations with Microsoft and AWS on systems to meet its cloud computing needs. Although only specifying these players, it added it would research if any other US-based “hyperscale CSPs” were also in a position to deliver on its requirements.

In its statement, Microsoft brushed aside the impact of the deal. “What matters now is the way forward, as the DoD has a critical unmet need to bring the power of cloud and AI to our men and women in uniform, modernising technology infrastructure and platform services technology.”

“We stand ready to support the DoD as they work through their next steps and its new cloud computing solicitation plans.”

Microsoft won the JEDI contract in 2019, but work was paused during a legal challenge over the procurement process launched by AWS shortly afterwards.