Esper defends Pentagon contract disputed by Amazon, says it 'was done fairly'

U.S. Defense secretary Mark Esper on Friday said he believes that awarding of a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft was done fairly. He defended  Pentagon contract disputed by Amazon as fair when he was asked about controversy at a news conference on Friday in Seoul.

Was ir government bias?

Pentagon decided to award contract to Microsoft earlier in October and Amazon decided that it h seen unmistakable bias on government's part in awarding contract to Microsoft, bypassing Amazon in process. Before  bid began, Esper h recused himself from process because his son h previously worked for one of unsuccessful bidders. He said he was confident that procedure was conducted fairly and freely without any outside influence or government bias. 

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Amazon will challenge decision

In its statement, Amazon said that numerous aspects of bidding process involved clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias. While it did t elaborate on se biases, se are serious allegations to be me against Pentagon.

project formally called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leing tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and IBM against each or. JEDI will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing U.S. military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.

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Amazon was for longest time believed to be front runner because ir web services division is far ahe of Microsoft. Also, Amazon has previous experience in handling government data. But it lost to Microsoft after having survived earlier legal challenges where Defense Department eliminated Oracle and IBM and whittled competition to two Seattle-area tech giants. It is t uncommon for losing bidders to claim foul play and challenge decision, but it will be a challenge to prove foul play and government bias.