Leidos teams up with Microsoft to push on generative AI in public sector

According to Leidos, the new partnership will focus in the near term on generative AI solutions to support organizational efficiency, enhanced productivity and cross-domain applications.

By Nihal Krishan

July 31, 2023

(Scoop News Group photo)

Federal contracting giant Leidos announced Monday a collaboration agreement with Microsoft aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence use for new and existing customers in the public sector.

According to the company, the new partnership will focus in the near term on generative AI solutions to support organizational efficiency, enhanced productivity and cross-domain applications.

“Our collaboration with Leidos will help accelerate adoption of cloud-driven solutions to improve our customers’ operations,” Angela Heise, corporate vice president of worldwide public sector at Microsoft said in a statement. “Leidos’ expertise in national security operations coupled with Microsoft’s advanced cloud, cyber, and AI technologies will enable our two organizations to develop innovative solutions to address a wide range of complex challenges faced by public sector organizations around the world.”

Leidos recently completed a tech migration of 20 critical support applications from an on-premise data center to Microsoft’s Azure Government cloud environment in support of the U.S. Navy.

The migration was part of Leidos’ ongoing support of the Department of the Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) Service Management, Integration, and Transport (SMIT) program, enabling the Navy to monitor the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) with greater efficiency and collaboration while keeping security protocols in place.

The Microsoft AI partnership comes amid a flurry of major contract wins for Leidos, which provides a range of technology and research and development services to government agencies including the Pentagon and the intelligence community.

Last year, the Defense Information Systems Agency issued an $11 billion contract to the company to consolidate the networks of non-warfighting defense support agencies.

Prior contract awards include a $390 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security for low-energy portal systems, which are used to conduct non-intrusive inspections of passenger vehicles.