The ecommerce giant requested the Court of Federal Claims to impose an injunction on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, which would see Microsoft build an enormous cloud environment for the Department of Defence. The JEDI project is no joke. It’s essentially the US government’s “war cloud,” to be responsible for processing and storing intense amounts of classified data, and will even feature an artificial intelligence component to help with war planning. Pentagon officials have reportedly described it as critical to pushing the US military’s technological advantage forward. As for Microsoft, it expressed disappointment with what it calls an “additional delay,” and that it believes it will ultimately be able to start work on the JEDI project. “We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft,” said the company in a statement (via FT).
