IBM and Siemens have won a 7.1 billion euros ($9.3 billion), 10-year contract to modernize and manage the non-military IT systems of Germany's armed forces, a Reuters report said.
Quoting the companies, the Reuters report said Siemens will receive a 60% share of the deal, the biggest contract ever won by the German industrial conglomerate, while US computer services giant IBM will receive the rest.
The two companies will co-manage the project, jointly holding 50.1% in the consortium running it, the Reuters report said.
The German government holds the remaining 49.9%, it added.
Sources close to the process had told Reuters that IBM and Siemens, both of whom already work with Germany's armed forces, could sign the contracts by the end of the year.
IBM and Siemens said in a statement that they would bring the armed forces' data centers, software, computers, telephones and data networks up to the latest standard as part of the modernization project, named 'Hercules.'
Under the German armed forces contract, IBM will be responsible for modernizing the data centers, while SBS will take care of PCs, servers and phone systems at more than 1,500 locations around Germany.