Retooling IT

The National Security Agency has billed Groundbreaker as a step toward bringing the agency's Cold War-era information technol.ogy into the 21st century.

The multibillion-dollar outsourcing contract encompasses most of NSA's internal computer systems, including telephone services; desktop computing hardware, software and support services; and IT security. NSA's mission-critical systems — those that manage classified information — won't be outsourced.

When complete, Groundbreaker will include enough cabling to reach coast to coast, storage capacity to hold the contents of the Library of Congress and computing power to rival BellSouth and Sprint combined.