An unlikely Senate duo is pushing to loosen the grip that tech giants such as Google and Amazon have over defense contracting in cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) introduced a bill on Thursday requiring the Defense Department to ensure there is a “competitive award process” — which they say is currently lacking — when it doles out contracts for advanced AI models, the cloud and data infrastructure.
It would also restrict what data government contractors are able to get from agencies and would mandate a report examining concentration in the AI market and identifying potential “barriers to entry” for smaller companies. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The Protecting AI and Cloud Competition in Defense Act, previewed exclusively for The Washington Post, would bring fresh bipartisan scrutiny to the billions the federal government regularly awards to some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players.
Warren, an outspoken critic of the tech giants who has called for them to be broken up, said in an interview that lucrative defense contracts can play a huge role in entrenching the power of major corporations and give an “unfair advantage to a few big players.”
“Few players call the shots on social media, sucking up Americans’ personal data and selling it for profit and skirting any meaningful regulation,” she said. “Now those same companies are getting ready to run the same playbook in the artificial intelligence and cloud computing market.”
Schmitt, who sits with Warren on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has previously talked about the importance of fostering the defense technology industry in places outside of Silicon Valley, including in his home state of Missouri.
Warren said the limits the bill would impose on sharing government data are particularly crucial to ensuring a level playing field in the rapidly changing AI sector.
“The way that the big get bigger in AI is by sucking up everyone else’s data and using it to train and expand their own systems,” she said. “That means that a new competitor can’t get a foot in the door because they don’t have that same reach.”
The bill comes as tech companies prepare to jockey for major federal contracts under the incoming Trump administration, and some are hoping for a business boom.
In 2018, Google opted not to renew a contract with the Pentagon to provide image-recognition technology after some of its workers objected to working on military projects. But since then, Silicon Valley companies have become more comfortable selling to the Defense Department.
Cloud giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon jostle for contracts to provide file storage and productivity software to the sprawling bureaucracies that make up the armed forces. And a wave of new start-ups is trying to sell military hardware like drones and radar-jammers to the Pentagon as it seeks to find more affordable ways to engage enemies among a proliferation of cheap drones on battlefields around the world.
While the bill has bipartisan support, it could face resistance from Republicans who have called for cutting down on red tape in government to unleash more innovation in AI.
Warren offered a preemptive rebuttal to those arguments.
“This is not a red tape issue. It’s a smart contracting issue,” she said. “I don’t know anyone, Republican or Democrat, who says they want the United States government to give away value for free and promote giants at the expense of smaller competitors.”
Schmitt made the case that expanding competition among defense contractors is important toward keeping up with China’s military. “At a time when we are facing a growing threat from the People’s Republic of China, the Department of Defense is in desperate need of procurement reform that induces more competition,” he said in a statement.
It’s the first time the two senators have teamed up on legislation, forging an alliance of Big Tech critics on both sides of the aisle. Warren campaigned for the White House in 2020 in part by calling for the breakup of the tech giants, while Schmitt sued the federal government over its contacts with social media companies when he served as Missouri’s attorney general.
Warren said she and Schmitt will look to tuck the proposal into the upcoming defense spending package, which lawmakers often use as a vehicle for year-end priorities.