Yes, this is the exact same contract that used to be called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) plan. This controversial cloud system would see the storage of classified Pentagon data for AI-based war planning.
Delay
While that could mean good news for Microsoft, the legal bickering has delayed the announcement of the “war cloud” winner. Concerns over the project have been widespread, even Microsoft’s own staff have protested the company bidding for the contract. Through a Medium blog post, Microsoft employees say they don’t want their AI and cloud to be used in war scenarios: “Many Microsoft employees don’t believe that what we build should be used for waging war.” “When we decided to work at Microsoft, we were doing so in the hopes of ’empowering every person on the planet to achieve more,’ not with the intent of ending lives and enhancing lethality,” the open letter added.
