Chase for NIH billions is on

The National Institutes of Health formally opened bidding this week for two major contracts with values totaling billions of dollars over a decade

The National Institutes of Health formally opened bidding this week for two major contracts — CIO-SP2i and Image World 2nd with a deadline of Aug. 24 for vendors to submit their proposals.

The two projects — CIO-SP2i, which is valued at $19 billion, and Image World 2nd, valued at $15 billion — have attracted the attention of hundreds of companies that are seeking a piece of the projects for technology services governmentwide.

Under the jurisdiction of the NIH's Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center, the contracts are expected to have a 10-year life cycle. Awards are to be made Sept. 30.

CIO-SP2i involves services such as support systems, business transformation, digital government and integration.

Image World 2nd involves document conversion, the electronic storage of material and the need to archive large quantities of legacy data while maintaining search, retrieval and printing capabilities.