Amazon Net Providers luggage Fujitsu’s HMRC loss

Amazon Net Providers (AWS) has received the contract to produce datacentre providers to HMRC by way of a contract designed to rid the UK authorities division of Fujitsu.

The ten-year contract, which is price almost £500m, is for providers to assist the HMRC exit three Fujitsu datacentres. Introduced in Might, the tender got here as the federal government and HMRC specifically confronted heavy criticism for its continued use of Fujitsu regardless of the Japanese provider’s function within the Publish Workplace scandal being out within the open.

It was an indication that HMRC, typically described as a money cow for Fujitsu, was prepared to interrupt away from Fujitsu amid public stress in relation to the scandal. Fujitsu’s software program was on the centre of the scandal, which has price UK taxpayers billions of kilos. Fujitsu has continued to keep away from commuting cash in direction of paying scandal prices and has continued to win massive authorities contracts.

HMRC was searching for a hyperscaler to offer providers to allow it to exit three Fujitsu datacentres. It later emerged that AWS was the only real bidder for the tax company’s contract.

“The target of the programme is to exit all providers from three managed datacentres and decommission any remaining infrastructure throughout the present contract interval of the incumbent datacentre internet hosting supplier (June 2028). The scope of the technical migration is at present all providers supported by {hardware} within the three datacentres,” stated the tender discover.

It was beforehand confirmed by HMRC in June 2025 that AWS, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle had been all approached to take part within the request for info portion of the multi-stage tender course of for the deal. In some unspecified time in the future over the next months, Oracle and Microsoft exited the method, and AWS, Google and IBM had been provisionally shortlisted. 

It’s claimed that issues concerning the tender being unfairly biased in direction of AWS had been an element within the suppliers’ choices to withdraw. Sources have claimed HMRC pushed again on provider options that adopting a hybrid cloud setup is perhaps a greater, cheaper technique to accommodate a migration off-premise, somewhat than a wholesale transfer to the general public cloud.

The estimated size of the venture additionally raised eyebrows, with issues surrounding the danger of provider lock-in tied to the contract being 10 years in size.

The notion that AWS was the one provider left within the operating for the contract additionally follows the Treasury Choose Committee querying HMRC’s reliance on AWS’s US-based infrastructure, after the company’s operations had been disrupted on 20 October 2025 by Amazon struggling a 14-hour outage in its US-based datacentre area.

In response, a spokesperson for HMRC stated on the time: “We comply with authorities procurement guidelines when awarding contracts, guaranteeing a aggressive and honest tender course of, and worth for cash for taxpayers. As soon as contracts are authorized, we publish the main points on Contracts Finder for transparency.”

Pc Weekly first uncovered the scandal in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered on account of Horizon accounting software program, which led to essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past.