According to a new report Amazon has made a deal with the CIA to develop a cloud computing infrastructure just for the clandestine agency. The deal is expected to bring in $600 million over 10 years for Amazon. Amazon Web Services will be working with CIA to build this private cloud infrastructure. It will greatly cut costs for the agency as it will effectively handle enormous amounts of data that the CIA works with. Amazon declined to comment on this deal whereas it is the policy of CIA not to divulge information about its contracts, contractors as well as the nature of the work. This new cloud service will obviously be heavily fortified behind CIA’s own firewalls.
The information about this deal comes from a single source and is yet to be verified. The director of IT management issues at Government Accountability Office, Dave Powner, said that he too did not know about this deal between Amazon and the CIA. Though he did add that he expects CIA to work along these lines. Amazon has a strong footing in the cloud computing niche and it can very well provide a rigid infrastructure for the CIA. We’ll have to wait and see if either one of them actually acknowledges its existence.
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