Donald Thomas, Bloomberg Government
A push to modernize aging government computer systems, bolster data security and shift operations to the cloud is driving increases in federal information technology spending, according to Bloomberg Government’s latest report, Federal IT Budget & Contract Opportunities. The report finds that about 71 percent of the federal government’s spending on information technology from fiscal 2014 to date has gone to contractors, while the remaining 29 percent has been spent on internal agency operations.
Most of those contract obligations go toward IT modernization, including cloud computing, cybersecurity, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. That trend is expected to continue. The President’s Management Agenda, released in March, emphasizes modernizing the government’s IT infrastructure to make it more efficient, secure and resilient.
The report highlights President Donald Trump’s approach to IT modernization, IT budget and obligations by fiscal year and the current top IT opportunities.
“In the next fiscal year, federal agencies are planning to spend about $15 billion on cybersecurity, $14 billion on IT modernization, and $8 billion on cloud services,” said Donald Thomas, vice president and general manager of government contracting at Bloomberg Government. “Our analysis highlights the opportunities where federal contractors can make dynamic changes and bring innovative solutions to the government.”
Among the Federal IT Budget & Contract Opportunities findings:
- The top 10 cybersecurity vendors have won about one-third of the cybersecurity contract obligations since fiscal 2014.
- Federal cloud expenditures will surpass $8 billion in fiscal 2018.
- In fiscal 2017, federal agencies spent close to $2.1 billion on data analytics and business intelligence and more than $450 million on artificial intelligence-related projects.
