The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) is inviting submissions from IT service providers on the provision of public cloud services to government bureaus and departments.

“The government has formulated a strategy to adopt cloud computing in delivering its e-services. We aim to establish a government cloud environment progressively over the next few years to support a range of government-wide applications,” a spokesman for OGCIO said in its website.

The government cloud environment includes an "in-house private cloud" owned and operated by the government, "outsourced private clouds" comprising facilities dedicated to the government in secure data centers operated by contractors, and "public clouds" for generic applications involving non-sensitive information.

Public cloud service providers can submit offers under four categories - productivity applications, business applications, cloud IT services and social media applications.

The OGCIO said it will compile and make available to all government departments a list of government public cloud services (GPCS) providers, together with their offered services and reference prices. 

“Under the procurement arrangement, bureaus and departments need not go through lengthy procurement for each and every acquisition, thereby speeding up the procurement process,” the spokesman said.