{"id":6384,"date":"2021-07-07T18:48:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1359670"},"modified":"2021-07-07T18:48:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:48:18","slug":"us-cancels-crucial-10b-military-ai-project-because-trump-is-a-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=6384","title":{"rendered":"US cancels crucial $10B military AI project because Trump is a baby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Pentagon yesterday announced<\/a> it was scuttling its long-doomed \u201cProject JEDI,\u201d a cloud-services AI contract that was awarded to Microsoft in 2019.<\/p>\n

Up front:<\/strong> Project JEDI is a big deal. The US military needs<\/em> a reliable cloud-service platform from which to operate its massive AI infrastructure. Unfortunately the project was mishandled from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Now, two years later, the Pentagon\u2018s calling for a reboot:<\/p>\n

\n

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) canceled the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud solicitation and initiated contract termination procedures. The Department has determined that, due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Evolving requirements?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acting DOD chief information officer John Sherman is quoted in the press release as saying the Pentagon\u2018s scrapping the project because \u201cevolution of the cloud ecosystem within DoD, and changes in user requirements to leverage multiple cloud environments to execute mission\u201d have necessitated an overhaul.<\/p>\n

But the Pentagon was clearly aware<\/a> of the problem with a single-provider cloud solution from the onset of the contract.<\/p>\n

IBM and Oracle both gave official statements citing the folly of the single-cloud provider. Oracle went on to sue the government<\/a> and IBM protested JEDI at inception, giving the following statement on its own blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

IBM knows what it takes to build a world-class cloud. No business in the world would build a cloud the way JEDI would and then lock in to it for a decade. JEDI turns its back on the preferences of Congress and the administration, is a bad use of taxpayer dollars and was written with just one company in mind. America\u2019s warfighters deserve better.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That \u201cone company in mind\u201d was Amazon. But Trump had other plans.<\/p>\n

When Microsoft then became the sole awardee of the $10B contract, it set off alarms in the tech community. Amazon filed a lawsuit<\/a> alleging the Pentagon was forbidden from issuing it the contract due to Donald Trump\u2018s conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Notably, Oracle\u2019s lawsuit was dismissed<\/a> after a government watchdog organization said the Pentagon\u2018s single-provider solution had been thoroughly looked into and met all the nation\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n

Per the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in November of 2018:<\/p>\n

\n

GAO\u2019s decision concludes that the Defense Department\u2019s decision to pursue a single-award approach to obtain these cloud services is consistent with applicable statutes (and regulations) because the agency reasonably determined that a single-award approach is in the government\u2019s best interests for various reasons, including national security concerns, as the statute allows.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And that makes it particularly silly for the Pentagon\u2018s acting IT boss to go on the record now claiming the US has only recently come to understand that a multi-provider cloud solution is necessary for Project JEDI.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:<\/b> The Pentagon\u2019s covering its own ass. Donald Trump\u2018s conflicts of interests, in this particular case, have set the nation\u2019s defensive capabilities and AI programs back by years.<\/p>\n

Whether we like it or not, we\u2019re in a global AI arms race<\/a>. And the US is doing a great job of shooting itself in the foot so China can catch up.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no telling how many millions of dollars the US has spent in court defending its ill-advised<\/a> and completely inexplicable decision to restrict a $10B cloud-service project to a single-provider.<\/p>\n

We do know that phase one of Project JEDI was schedule to be completed in April \u2013 a deadline that\u2019s long passed.<\/p>\n

Now, after all the delays, the Pentagon (sans Donald Trump\u2018s interference) will finally move forward with Project JEDI as a multi-provider cloud solution, apparently starting the bidding process all over.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s only one rational explanation for all of it: Trump\u2019s soft-shelled, crybaby egotism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When it was announced the project would be awarded to a single-provider, most experts and pundits were certain Amazon would win the contract. This obviously didn\u2019t sit well with former president Trump.<\/p>\n

The former president, during the period of time in which bidding for JEDI was still open, often conflated Amazon and the Washington Post due to both companies being owned by rival billionaire Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n

\"A
<\/i><\/a>These are all from the period during which Project JEDI was originally being deliberated.<\/figcaption>