Infrastructure for hosting or data processing services including cloud computing. Find active federal and state data processing and hosting services contracts — AI-scored against your profile across SAM.gov and 200+ portals.
Federal spending under NAICS 518210 exceeds $10 billion annually, driven by cloud migration, data center consolidation, and cybersecurity mandates. Demand is fueled by initiatives like JEDI, JWCC, and the Federal Data Center Optimization Initiative. Competition is intense, with large integrators (e.g., AWS, Microsoft, GDIT) dominating, but small businesses win through set-asides. Contracts are typically multi-award IDIQs or BPAs (e.g., Alliant 2, 8(a) STARS III, SEWP V) rather than single-award. Agencies prefer best-value tradeoffs emphasizing technical approach, past performance, and security compliance over lowest price. Demand spikes for classified cloud (e.g., NSA's Hybrid Compute Initiative) and AI/ML hosting.
These agencies are the largest buyers of data processing and hosting services services and products in the federal government. Each awards contracts under NAICS 518210 regularly — build relationships with their small business offices first.
Winning requires targeting specific set-aside vehicles: 8(a) STARS III for small disadvantaged businesses, HCaTS for small businesses, and GSA Schedule 70's SIN 518210C for cloud. The single highest-leverage move is obtaining FedRAMP authorization (Moderate or High) for your platform, as it's a prerequisite for most cloud contracts. Also, invest in CMMC Level 2 certification to handle DoD data. Bid as a prime on small business set-aside task orders under agency-specific IDIQs (e.g., DIA's SITE III).
Agencies buy via best-value tradeoffs emphasizing security, scalability, and past performance. Common vehicles: GSA Schedule 70 (SIN 518210C for cloud), SEWP V (for IT products and services), 8(a) STARS III (small business set-aside), and agency-specific IDIQs (e.g., NASA SEWP, DIA SITE III). LPTA is rare; technical factors dominate.
For cloud service offerings, FedRAMP authorization is often mandatory, especially for civilian agencies (FedRAMP Moderate) and DoD (FedRAMP High or Impact Level 4/5). Without it, you can only bid as a subcontractor or on unclassified, low-impact data processing work.
Award sizes vary widely: task orders range from $500K to $50M. Small business set-asides average $5-15M for 3-5 year base periods. Large enterprise cloud contracts (e.g., JWCC) exceed $1B, but small businesses compete on sub-orders.
Bonding is rare for services-based 518210 contracts. However, if the contract includes hardware procurement (e.g., data center equipment), performance bonds may be required. Most IDIQ task orders do not require bonds.
Beyond FedRAMP, key certifications include ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, CMMC (for DoD), and ITIL. For classified work, facility clearance (SCIF) and personnel clearances are critical. AWS/Azure certifications also help demonstrate expertise.
Large primes include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, General Dynamics IT, and Leidos. Small business competitors often specialize in niche areas like FedRAMP-authorized cloud brokerage, managed hosting for legacy systems, or AI/ML data processing.