Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co on Wednesday said it won a 10-year, $2 billion contract to supply high-performance computing systems to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

The systems will be used for artificial intelligence computing, the company said. The system will be housed in a data center owned by QTS Realty Trust Inc.

Under the contract, HPE will build and manage the system, and the NSA will pay to use it as a service. HPE said the NSA will start using the service in 2022.

The NSA is one of the United States' top spy agencies, carrying out espionage against foreign countries and also maintaining a domestic cyber security arm that has faced criticism for seeking arrangements with technology companies to access unencrypted data.

  - Reuters