On November 20, the US general affairs administration (GSA), which is responsible for government procurement, said that the US Department of defense had issued invitations to Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle to bid for new commercial cloud computing contracts < p > the U.S. Department of defense hopes to use the strength of technology companies to help improve technical capabilities and make use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analysis and other functions of modern cloud platforms. Earlier, the U.S. Department of defense cancelled a highly competitive contract worth about $10 billion. Microsoft won the contract, but Amazon questioned it < p > the new contract is called "joint warfare cloud capability" (jwcc). The U.S. Department of defense plans to award it to Amazon and Microsoft, the world's top cloud infrastructure providers, but it may also be awarded to two smaller entities. The value of the new contract is unclear, but the Defense Department estimates it could reach billions of dollars < p > GSA said in a statement: "the government expects to award two contracts for irregular delivery / uncertain quantity (idiq) to Amazon AWS and Microsoft respectively, but may also award them to all cloud service providers (CSPs) that can meet the requirements of the Ministry of defense." < / P > < p > idiq contracts include providing uncertain quantity of services in a specific period of time. GSA said that only Amazon and Microsoft, two U.S. cloud infrastructure providers, seem to be able to meet all the requirements of the Department of defense, including "tactical edge devices" that can run outside traditional data centers and support all levels of data classification < p > Amazon and Microsoft are the ultimate contenders for the joint enterprise defense infrastructure (Jedi) contract. However, the contract is awarded to only one supplier and is expected to be worth up to $10 billion within 10 years. Microsoft won the contract in 2019, and Amazon protested, prompting the Defense Department to cancel the contract in July < p > Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon and former head of AWS, believes that there are political interference factors in the award of Jedi contract. Guy snowgrass, a speech writer of former US Secretary of defense James Mattis, said in a book that former president Donald Trump had called Mattis to "destroy Amazon's opportunity to bid for Jedi contract". However, after investigation, the inspector general of the Department of defense believes that the contract does not seem to be affected by the White House < p > jwcc is different from Jedi because it allows the U.S. Department of defense to rely on multiple cloud providers. DOD expects each idiq contract to have a three-year base period and a two-year option period < p > an Oracle spokesman said: "Oracle is pleased to join the bidding for the jwcc contract. We are committed to providing the highest level of security, performance and value for Enterprise Cloud Applications and cloud infrastructure to support the warfighters and tasks of the Ministry of defense." < / P > < p > a Google spokesman pointed out that the company plans to bid for military contracts and said that the Ministry of defense is the largest employer in the world. It was previously reported that after Google planned to bid for Jedi contract, employees protested, and the company tried to skillfully solve employees' growing concerns about military contracts and previously established artificial intelligence principles < p > representatives of Microsoft and Amazon declined to comment. (small) < / P > < p >