Amazon Web Services on Tuesday announced the launch of a second cloud computing region built specifically to host the federal government’s secret classified information.
The AWS Secret-West Region is accredited to support workloads up to the “secret” classification level, and will provide defense and national security customers — and their partners — improved performance, availability and resiliency for AI and other intensive compute workloads.
The company intends to launch the region by the end of the year, according to AWS Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector Dave Levy, speaking Tuesday at AWS Summit in Washington, D.C.
“The launch of the AWS Secret-West Region will strengthen U.S. AI leadership and accelerate the development of advanced capabilities and groundbreaking innovation,” Levy said. “Customers using the new AWS Secret-West Region will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider and see their critical missions enhanced by the operational speed, scalability, security and innovation that AWS provides.”
Levy spoke on stage with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who called the intelligence community’s use of a new chatbot and other AI applications in secret and top secret clouds “a gamechanger.”
“Looking across all the IC elements, these are tools that are helping us get after our mission,” she said.
The AWS Secret-West Region allows national security customers, which include U.S. intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, to deploy multi-region architectures and to store data closer to users — important for latency-sensitive workloads where milliseconds make a difference.
The secret region is the latest major investment from AWS in public sector customers that largely began in 2011 when it launched AWS GovCloud (US-West), the first cloud infrastructure designed for government customers. The cloud provider later launched its first secret cloud region in 2017. It also operates two top-secret regions and has been awarded multiple major multi-billion dollar contracts from the intelligence community and Defense Department. The U.S. Army, a large AWS customer, weighed in publicly on the new region.
“The Army welcomes the announcement by AWS regarding the availability of a second Secret AWS cloud region, which will enhance support for critical warfighting IT systems and data,” Leo Garciga, chief information officer of the U.S. Army, said in a statement. “This new region offers key benefits that align with the Army’s modernization priorities and will function as a highly resilient backup site, safeguarding combat-essential applications and information from disruptions, thereby improving the lethality and readiness of our forces.”
