Following today’s news (26 October) that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has struck a new deal with GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 to host classified data;

Amir Boubaker, Defence Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“This deal with Amazon is another reminder that the UK Government is willing to partner with a foreign supplier if it means gaining the edge over its adversaries.

“According to GlobalData’s latest market data, AWS has taken over 50% of public sector market share for hosting services this fiscal year. This comes amid a clear strategy by AWS to grow its presence across the UK Government, with its revenue reaching a high of £88m in fiscal year 2020-21. This includes doubling its revenue with HMRC in 2020-21 alone (£51m) and record highs with the Department for Work and Pensions (£14m) in 2020-21 and Home Office (£25m) in 2019-20.

“While no official contract has been published yet, early reports suggest the new AWS deal is worth between £500m to £1bn over the next ten years, significantly boosting UK Government revenue with the cloud provider. The deal was signalled last October when Strategic Command, the intelligence-focused branch within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), published a pre-tender looking for a supplier to deliver a SECRET (classification level) cloud capability. Codenamed the EMPORIUM Project, the supplier would be responsible for migrating MoD data to a new private cloud environment – something that would require the supplier to have access to MoD secure networks and data centres.”