A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to halt work on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud computing network, known as JEDI, as it considers allegations that President Donald Trump improperly interfered in the bidding process. The order comes just one day before the Defense Department had planned to "go live" with JEDI.

The JEDI contract, worth up to $US10 billion ($14.9 billion) over 10 years, was awarded to Microsoft in late October after a last-minute intervention from the White House prompted Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper to reexamine the department's approach. The contract is meant to create a powerful, centralised computing system for US military agencies.

Amazon's market-leading cloud computing division is suing the Defense Department in the US Court of Federal Claims, arguing the president's involvement skewed the playing field in its rival's favor. The company alleges the Defense Department made numerous errors as it weighed bids from Amazon and Microsoft. And it accused Trump of launching "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" against Amazon to act on a grudge against the company's founder, Jeff Bezos.