Author Archive
Frank Konkel
Vice President, Editorial

Frank Konkel is vice president of editorial and an editor at large for Nextgov/FCW. He writes about the intersection of government and technology. Frank began covering tech in 2013 upon moving to the Washington, D.C., area after getting his start in journalism working at local and state issues at daily newspapers in his home state of Michigan. Frank was born and raised on a dairy farm and graduated from Michigan State University.
Threats
Pentagon UFO Chief: ‘No Credible Evidence’ of Aliens, Yet
Sean Kirkpatrick, who heads the Defense Department’s All-Domain Anomaly Office, briefed the Senate Wednesday.
- Frank Konkel
Policy
Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Ban TikTok, Citing National Security
Bipartisan bill follows FBI warnings about Beijing's sway over the world's largest social-media platform.
- Frank Konkel
Business
Pentagon Splits $9B Cloud Effort Among Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle
All four had been shortlisted for JWCC, DOD's do-over of its giant JEDI cloud contract effort.
- Frank Konkel
Policy
Biden Invokes Defense Production Act to Boost Clean Energy Manufacturing
“Reducing America’s dependence on gas and oil is critical to U.S. national security,” DepSecDef Hicks said.
- Frank Konkel
Threats
Iran-Linked Hackers Probing US Networks, Intel Agencies Warn
Active “cyber operations against government and commercial networks” may seek to take advantage of defenders' focus on Russia.
- Frank Konkel
Threats
Biden ‘Prepared to Respond’ If Russia Cyberattacks US
The White House also announced sanctions to limit Russia’s access to cutting-edge technologies.
- Frank Konkel
Threats
US Spy Chief Warns Government Is Classifying Too Much Data
As the amount of data soars, so does the burden of reviewing classified data for its eventual declassification.
- Frank Konkel
Business
Amazon Offers 2nd Air-Gapped Cloud For Top-Secret Data
The new cloud's data centers are "more than 1,000 miles" away from the northern-Virginia complex that serves U.S. intelligence and defense agencies.
- Frank Konkel
Policy
NSA Awards Secret Up-to-$10B Contract to Amazon
A Microsoft protest of the decision has revealed some details about the U.S. intelligence community's second multi-billion dollar cloud award of the year.
- Frank Konkel
Business
Pentagon Cancels JEDI Cloud Contract
The Defense Department will opt for a new multibillion-dollar, multi-vendor contract.
- Frank Konkel and Mila Jasper
Policy
Court to Explore Whether Trump Officials Interfered in JEDI Contract
The Defense Department previously said lengthy litigation could threaten the contract’s future.
- Frank Konkel
Business
Pentagon Awards JEDI Cloud Contract to Microsoft, Again
The decision follows a months-long legal challenge filed by Amazon Web Services.
- Frank Konkel and Aaron Boyd
Threats
The Pandemic is Pushing the Pentagon Toward Classified Telework
The risk-averse agency has cracked small-scale remote handling of secret and top-secret information. The challenge is doing it at scale.
- Frank Konkel
Science & Tech
Pentagon Wants More Time to Review JEDI Cloud Contract Bids
The Defense Department says it wants to further discuss Microsoft’s and Amazon Web Services’ pricing.
- Frank Konkel
Threats
FBI Opens a China-Related Counterintelligence Investigation Every 10 Hours
FBI Director Chris Wray says China is increasing its illegal activity to subvert the U.S. during the pandemic.
- Frank Konkel
Science & Tech
Navy's $70 Billion Financial System Now in the Cloud
Just "one database contained more than 13 terabytes of data." Amazon moved the entire system in 10 months, eight ahead of schedule.
- Frank Konkel
Science & Tech
Bipartisan Senate Bill Seeks to Boost Pentagon AI Talent
Step one: teach the Defense Department's HR staff to find and hire experts in artificial intelligence.
- Frank Konkel
Science & Tech
Pentagon Wants Help With Its Predictive Aircraft Maintenance AI
Among other things, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center needs someone to format data about H-60 helicopters in a way that an AI can learn from it.
- Frank Konkel
Business
Amazon Files Another Protest Over JEDI Contract
In response, Microsoft blasts Amazon Web Services for trying to force a do-over for the multibillion-dollar cloud contract.
- Frank Konkel
Policy
Pentagon IG: We Can’t Rule Out White House Influence on JEDI Award
A 300-page investigation reveals multiple ethics violations and a refusal by Defense Department General Counsel to let senior officials comment on communications with the White House.
- Frank Konkel