AWS, the world’s largest cloud company, has won a $581 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to provide cloud services and specific Amazon data centers as part of the Air Force’s Cloud One Program.
“This contract provides for Amazon Cloud Service in support of the Air Force’s Cloud One Program and their customers,” said the U.S. Department of War in a statement unveiling the new AWS contract.
The $581 million firm-fixed-price award covers AWS cloud services that support Cloud One, the Air Force’s enterprise cloud environment used across multiple internal customers.
“Work will be performed at the contractor’s designated facilities across the contiguous U.S. and is expected to be completed by Dec. 7, 2028,” said the U.S. government. “This award is the result of a sole source acquisition.”
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The $132 billion Seattle-based cloud and AI giant has been innovating around data sovereignty, data privacy and cloud sovereignty targeting governments and public sector clients for years.
Just this month, AWS announced the availability of its new AWS European Sovereign Cloud, an independent cloud infrastructure for Europe entirely located within the EU and designed to meet the needs of European governments’ sensitive data.
Cloud One Program; AWS GovCloud Data Centers
The contract and cloud services will be carried out at specific AWS data centers across America through Dec. 7, 2028, so over the course of roughly three years.
AWS GovCloud includes isolated U.S. sovereign regions operated by U.S. citizens at AWS who aim to deliver innovation for government customers with complex compliance needs.
It is comprised of two physically and logically isolated U.S. sovereign regions, AWS GovCloud US-East and GovCloud US-West, operated by U.S. citizens that enable secure, scalable and resilient enterprise cloud architectures.
The U.S. government’s Cloud One is the pre-eminent enterprise cloud available to the Department of War and managed by the Air Force. A multi-vendor ecosystem, Cloud One is a one-stop shop for Department of War mission application owners that require a full array of commercial cloud services, scale, security and solutions for cloud computing.
Deal Includes $3.5 Million Initially Awarded
The vast majority of AWS’ $581 million deal with the Air Force will not be granted to the cloud company this year.
Approximately $3.5 million will be given to AWS for operations and maintenance funds at the time of the award. This points toward the large contract ramping up as workloads expand.
U.S. defense cloud contracts are typically longer term than traditional enterprise contacts and are difficult to replace once integrated.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center located at the Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts is handling the contracting.
In 2025, AWS agreed to provide U.S. government agencies with up to $1 billion in savings for cloud adoption, modernization and training through the end of 2028.
