Pentagon eager to resolve JEDI contract as China races to develop military cloud computing system...

While the Pentagon’s long-awaited colossal cloud-computing deal has sparked fierce competition between tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, the Defense Department is keeping a keen eye on China’s own cloud efforts.

China is racing to develop its own military cloud computing system, and Pentagon officials are eager to get moving.

“We don’t want to waste any more time moving forward because we know our potential adversaries are doing it at their own speed,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan said during a closed-door media roundtable Friday at the Pentagon.

“Whether it’s Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, SenseTime, they’re all coming up with their own cloud solutions,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make them 1,000 feet tall; they’re going to have their own cloud interoperability challenges. But the level of investment and the number of people they’re putting at the problem, they’re moving at a very rapid pace, and what I can’t afford to do is slow down anymore.”

Shanahan, the three-star general in charge of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, also explained how the U.S. military’s pursuit of an enterprise cloud will support AI and the future of warfare.