Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the AWS Secret Cloud for Industry (ASCI) to enable contractor-owned classified workloads to run on AWS.The ASCI is designed for cleared US defense contractors, research institutions, and other organizations in the National Industrial Security Program (NASI), which previously would have had to build and maintain their own on-premises infrastructure for classified programs.With ASCI, they can access AWS technologies, including AI, and scale as needed on the cloud platform.ASCI holds a Provisional Authorization at Impact Level 6 from the Defense Information Systems Agency, meeting the authorization standard for secret-classified information, and uses the same Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) compliance framework that cleared defense contractors already use for on-premises classified systems“America's defense industrial base builds the capabilities that keep this nation safe, and it's time they have the tools to match the urgency of the mission,” said Dave Levy, vice president of AWS worldwide public sector. “AWS Secret Cloud for Industry puts the full power of cloud computing and AI directly into the hands of the engineers and scientists working on our most sensitive programs. Now, the defense industrial base can innovate at the speed the moment demands, using the same classified infrastructure trusted by the Department of War.”Northrop Grumman is the first customer to deploy, with the defense contractor stating that its initial workload in the AWS Secret-East Region would have required months of hardware procurement to stand up on-premises.“Northrop Grumman delivers game-changing defense technologies to our trusted partners,” said Drew Barnes, vice president of IT infrastructure and operations at Northrop Grumman. “Migrating our critical classified programs to the AWS Secret Cloud for Industry solution fundamentally changes how we develop and scale sensitive programs at speed to deliver when it matters most.”Alongside the ASCI launch, AWS has also announced that it is commencing a $1 billion cloud incentive program for the US intelligence community to help reduce migration costs that may be keeping some locked in to on-premises systems.The credits are available through October 2030 for all IC agencies with existing AWS contracts. The CIA has confirmed it will leverage the offering.AWS has long been serving the US government with dedicated cloud regions. It launched the AWS GovCloud (US-West) in 2011, AWS Top Secret-East - an air-gapped cloud for classified workloads - in 2014, the AWS Secret Region in 2017, and since 2018 has added a second GovCloud region (US-East), AWS Top Secret-West, and AWS Secret-West regions. The latter was only launched in October 2025. The company does not reveal the exact locations of these regions.In November 2025, AWS announced it would spend $50 billion on expanding its AI and supercomputing capacity for US government customers. The cloud giant said it would break ground on the projects in 2026, and expects to add nearly 1.3GW of compute capacity across the AWS Top Secret, AWS Secret, and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions at all classification levels by building new data centers.