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June 6, 2025

Amazon provides cloud infrastructure for CIA, NSA, and FBI operations

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Amazon provides CIA cloud infrastructure while NSA director joins corporate board

In 2013, Amazon Web Services secured its first intelligence community contract—a $600 million deal to provide cloud services to the CIA—launching AWS’s classified data relationship across all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies (Question 1; Nextgov).

Former NSA Director Keith Alexander joined Amazon’s board of directors in Sep. 2020, seven years after leaving government service (Question 2; TechCrunch).

The Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) contract, awarded to AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM, is estimated at tens of billions of dollars over the next decade and a half, serving the CIA plus 16 other intelligence agencies (Questions 3 & 10; Data Center Dynamics).

Amazon won the NSA’s $10 billion cloud computing contract codenamed “WildandStormy,” prompting Microsoft to file a formal bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (Question 5; Washington Post).

Amazon Web Services remains the only commercial cloud provider authorized to host workloads at all classification levels—including top secret—for U.S. intelligence agencies (Question 6; Nextgov).

CIA Chief Information Officer La’Naia Jones stated that “AI is now being looked at in every aspect and facet of, not just CIA, but really across the intel community” (Question 7; AWS blog).

AWS Vice President Dave Levy said the company’s partnership with the intelligence community “made it a better cloud provider” by applying the community’s stringent security requirements across all AWS customers (Question 9; Nextgov).

NSA Chief Information Officer Scott Fear reported that, as of Dec. 2024, the NSA was about three to four years into moving its capabilities into the Amazon cloud (Question 14; Nextgov).

🛡️National Security📜Constitutional Law✊Civil Rights

Test Your Knowledge

10
Q1

When did Amazon Web Services first begin providing cloud services to the intelligence community?

Q2

How many intelligence agencies does the C2E contract serve beyond the CIA?

Q3

What is the estimated value of the intelligence community's C2E cloud contract awarded to multiple companies including AWS?

Q4

According to CIA CIO La'Naia Jones, how is artificial intelligence being integrated into intelligence operations?

Q5

According to the NSA CIO, how far along is the agency in moving capabilities to Amazon's cloud?

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What you can do

1

File a Freedom of Information Act request via the CIA Reading Room (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom) for: • The 2013 AWS–CIA cloud services contract • The terms and scope of the Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) contract.

2

Monitor the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s hearings on cloud procurement by visiting https://www.congress.gov and searching “cloud contract” or “C2E” in the committee’s calendar.

3

Review GAO bid protest decisions at https://www.gao.gov/legal/bid-protests by searching for “WildandStormy” or “NSA cloud computing contract” to read Microsoft’s formal protest against Amazon’s award.