A judge told the Pentagon to hit pause on the $10 billion JEDI contract in a minor victory for Amazon's challenge to Microsoft's surprise win

• A federal judge approved Amazon's motion to have the Defense Department suspend work on the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract.
• The Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft last year, in a stunning defeat for Amazon, which was widely expected to win the contract.
• Amazon filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. The cloud giant last week asked the court to "stop further JEDI contract performance until the Court decides the protest."
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Amazon just scored a minor victory in the fight over JEDI after a judge told the Pentagon to hit pause on the $10 billion cloud project.

A federal claims court judge has approved Amazon's motion to have the Defense Department suspend work on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, a massive cloud that will store and manage sensitive military and defense data. A sealed opinion and order said the Defense Department was "preliminarily enjoined" from proceeding with the JEDI contract. It was unclear why the order was sealed.

The Pentagon awarded the JEDI contract to Microsoft last year, an upset victory over rival Amazon, which had been widely favored to win. But Amazon challenged the Pentagon's decision, accusing the agency of "clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias" against the cloud giant.

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Last week, Amazon asked the court to "stop further JEDI contract performance until the Court decides the protest."

"It's important that the numerous evaluation errors and blatant political interference that impacted the JEDI award decision be reviewed," an Amazon Web Services spokesperson said. "AWS is absolutely committed to supporting the DoD's modernization efforts and to an expeditious legal process that resolves this matter as quickly as possible."

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