The Air Force awarded Accenture Federal Services a contract to provide Enterprise IT as-a-Service under a $66 million Other Transaction Authority announced Oct. 15.
Under the agreement, Accenture will provide compute and store services to six bases across the United States. Accenture will use commercial software to modernize technology infrastructure at the bases.
EITaaS will allow an IT company to handle the service’s day-to-day computing tasks.
The company will also migrate Air Force applications to the cloud, where they will be available on the military’s classified and unclassified networks. Accenture will use artificial intelligence and automation to maintain the environment.
“We’re honored to be selected to help the Air Force enable its digital transformation,” said Susan Lawrence, a managing director at AFS who leads the Armed Forces sector within its defense portfolio.
“By combining our leading commercial digital capabilities with our innovation methodology and cutting-edge human-centered design work, we can help provide a foundation for cloud growth within the Air Force and across the Department of Defense.”
The six Air Force bases are: Buckley in Colorado; Maxwell in Alabama; Offutt in Nebraska; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska; Cannon in New Mexico; and Hurlburt Field in Florida.
AT&T, Microsoft and Unisys have also been awarded agreements to provide these services to the Air Force.
The Air Force is not the only military branch experimenting with the technology. The Army announced Oct. 1 three EITaaS prototype contracts.
Update: This story has been updated to include additional contractors awarded EITaaS agreements.
Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.