AWS Unveils Classified Cloud for Defense Contractors, New Funding Initiatives

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched AWS Secret Cloud for Industry (ASCI), a new offering designed to provide defense contractors with access to the same classified cloud regions used by the Department of War. This development allows partners within the National Industrial Security Program to host Secret-classified workloads without the need to build or maintain their own on-premises classified infrastructure. The initiative is significant for the defense contracting sector as it streamlines compliance and accelerates the deployment of advanced defense capabilities through dedicated funding and authorized cloud environments.

Dave Levy, vice president of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector, announced the launch of AWS Secret Cloud for Industry (ASCI) during the AWS Summit in Washington, D.C. The new offering is the result of a multi-year collaboration with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA). ASCI has achieved a Provisional Authorization at Impact Level 6 (IL6) from DISA, allowing defense industrial base partners to access the same Secret-classified cloud regions and services used by the Department of War.

Northrop Grumman has already become the first defense contractor to deploy classified workloads on the ASCI platform after completing the necessary authorization and onboarding. The service is specifically available to U.S. defense contractors, research institutions, and other organizations operating within the National Industrial Security Program. By using the same DCSA compliance framework that contractors currently use for on-premises systems, ASCI provides a familiar environment for managing classified data without the need for companies to build or maintain their own secure infrastructure.

To accelerate the adoption of these cloud services, AWS introduced the ASCI Accelerator Initiative, which offers up to $20 million in credits over three years to qualified defense contractors, research centers, and system integrators. These credits are designed to assist organizations in migrating classified workloads to the cloud, validating them, and moving into full production. Furthermore, Levy announced the Intelligence Community Accelerated Modernization Framework, which commits up to $1 billion in cloud credits through October 2030 for workloads migrating to AWS under the company's existing contract with the U.S. intelligence community.