Lockheed Martin to Operate Inside Microsoft Azure's 'Secret Cloud'

Lockheed Martin (LM) and Microsoft entered into an agreement today under which LM will operate inside the Microsoft Azure Government Secret cloud ushering in a new era of cloud opportunities for industry.

Lockheed Martin is the first defense industrial base member to use Microsoft's newest National Industrial Security Program (NISP) framework for air-gapped clouds after a year-long pilot. Work on developing the classified and unclassified cloud environments is already underway, with expectations for the project to be operational in 2023.

Besides the agreement covers Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Modeling and Simulation Capabilities and 5G for military programs: Lockheed Martin and Microsoft have entered a two-year collaborative research and development (R&D) program that will advance AI/ML and modeling and simulation capabilities for the DOD.

The R&D agreement also expands the companies' existing collaboration to deliver advanced networking and secure 5G capabilities at the tactical edge.

Jason Zander, executive vice president, Strategic Missions and Technologies, Microsoft: "In partnership with Lockheed Martin, we're demonstrating how the defense industrial base can bring classified data into the cloud securely while bringing advanced 5G connectivity, critical data processing and analysis, to support decision- making where it's needed, when it's needed."

Microsoft's first-of-its-kind technology will allow Lockheed Martin to dynamically scale IT demands under authorized guidance and directly operate mission workloads inside Azure Government Secret, including highly restricted special programs.

Through this agreement, Lockheed Martin will partner with Microsoft to build on Microsoft's advanced gaming, exercising, modeling and simulation (GEMS) and emulation solutions to bring military planning and coordination through immersive environments. Using GEMS technology, Lockheed Martin and its customers can test military platforms and technologies that power joint all-domain operations on a digital platform. Such capabilities have the potential to cut costs for the DOD and minimize risk to service members by providing a digital alternative for some military exercises.

Lockheed Martin and Microsoft will continue to develop each of the four critical areas and demonstrate a series of progressively more complex capabilities throughout 2023. The capabilities unlocked by this collaboration will apply to a range of defense applications across all domains: land, sea, air, space and cyber.