Alliant 3's award process starts to roll
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By
Ross Wilkers
The General Services Administration is taking an "Anything IT Anywhere" approach for this new iteration of the massive government-wide technology vehicle.
The General Services Administration has gotten off the starting blocks with a first round of awards for Alliant 3, the much-anticipated recompete of GSA’s massive governmentwide IT services and solutions contract vehicle.
Alliant 3 continues the tradition of its two predecessors as touching almost every aspect of technology across government, highlighted by GSA’s “Anything IT Anywhere” description when the final solicitation was released in July 2024.
GSA announced this first cohort of 43 winners on Friday and plans to chose up to 76 companies. They will compete for task orders in support of federal IT modernization efforts and to help agencies acquire emerging technologies.
No one has officially been eliminated from the competition yet as GSA is still evaluating proposals, of which it received 133 in total. Debriefing letters will go out after GSA completes all phases of the awards.
Alliant 3 has a potential 10-year ordering period and no ceiling, a departure from the current iteration that started out with a $50 billion ceiling in 2017 that has since grown to $83 billion.
GSA’s announcement cites systems engineering, cloud computing services, cybersecurity, data solutions and software development as broad examples of work areas under Alliant 3.
“Alliant 3 embodies GSA’s commitment to delivering smarter buying for the federal enterprise by simplifying how agencies access critical IT services through a single, governmentwide contract,” Lawrence Hale, assistant commissioner for GSA’s office of IT category, said in a release. “It enables agencies to adopt modern technologies more quickly, strengthen performance and security, and deliver measurable results for the American taxpayer.”
While in the works for many years, Alliant 3’s size and specs do indicate that it will be a key cog in efforts by the Trump administration to centralize acquisitions of common goods and services at GSA.
President Trump’s March 20, 2025 order titled “Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement” mentions IT as in that realm of common goods and services.
“By offering a streamlined approach to IT procurement, this contract offering not only reduces duplication and lowers administrative costs, but also significantly strengthens the federal government’s overall purchasing power,” said Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.
Like the original, the current Alliant 2 iteration has been a major driver of both technology modernization efforts across the government and revenue opportunities for companies in the market.
Roughly $43 billion in task order volume has flowed through Alliant 2 with the sunset date currently scheduled for June 30, 2028. Data from GovTribe pegs the top five ordering agencies as the Homeland Security Department, Air Force, Army, Treasury Department, and Health and Human Services Department.
Alliant 3 is the full-and-open companion contract to Polaris, a fellow government-wide IT vehicle that is reserved for small businesses and also set up to have a staggered award process.
GSA made its most recent round of selections for Polaris earlier this month, where 55 woman-owned small businesses found out they are “apparently successful” offerors pending any potential size and status challenges.