The Pentagon has awarded $9 billion worth of cloud computing contracts to Alphabet Inc, Google, Amazon Web Services Inc, Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, Reuters writes.

Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) is the successor to Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), which was an IT modernization project to create a large shared commercial cloud for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The contract announcement states that the individual contracts, with a notional total value of $9 billion, run through 2028 and will provide the Department of Defense with globally available cloud services across all security domains and classification levels.

A few years ago, the Pentagon attempted to move to a cloud-based service using the JEDI concept, but that proposal did not go forward after a lawsuit halted the procurement process.

The deal could give the military equal status with private companies.