Microsoft will give the US government a discount on cloud services

The General Services Administration announced Tuesday that Microsoft has agreed to offer U.S. agencies a discount on its cloud services as part of the administration’s efforts to negotiate agreements with tech firms for executive branch departments.

According to GSA and Microsoft, the agreement will save the U.S. government up to $3 billion in the first year. Reuters was unable to confirm that number right away.

According to the business, the partnership will grant current federal government customers free access to Microsoft Copilot, their generative AI chatbot, opens new tab. Additionally, agencies can save money on cloud services like Azure Monitoring and Microsoft Sentinel.

According to GSA, agencies have until September 2026 to choose whether to accept the offer.

Similar agreements have been announced in recent weeks by GSA, the agency in charge of negotiating contracts with vendors for the entire government. In August, the government declared that discounts had been agreed upon with cloud rivals Google and Amazon Web Services. According to GSA, the objective is to provide commercial AI tools to the whole federal agency.