Google pursuing Pentagon contract despite employee concerns: NYT

Google is reportedly pursuing a cloud computing contract with the Defense Department to provide its technology to the military, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

This comes three years after an employee revolt forced Google to abandon work on a Pentagon program known as Project Maven that used artificial intelligence.

Thousands of Google employees signed a letter in 2018 protesting the giant tech’s involvement in the program used to interpret video images and refine the targeting of drone strikes. The company later agreed to not renew the contract once it expired.

Now, the Pentagon is looking to resurrect its cloud computing project, which is providing an opportunity for Google to enter the bidding war to cooperate with the military.

The potentially lucrative contract, known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, could again provoke uproar among Google’s outspoken work force.

The Times noted that it is not clear if Google’s involvement with the Pentagon through the contract would be regarded as a breach of the company’s artificial intelligence principles.

Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson told The Hill in a statement that the tech giant believes a multi-cloud strategy would present the Pentagon “the best solution today and in the future.”

“We are firmly committed to serving our public sector customers, including the DoD, Department of Energy, NIH, and many other government agencies, and we will evaluate any future bid opportunities accordingly,” the spokesperson added.

In September, Google’s cloud unit announced an emergency “Code Yellow” for the Defense Department’s proposal, according to two sources, which allows the company to transfer engineers from other assignments to the military endeavor.

On Tuesday, Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google’s cloud unit, reportedly met with Charles Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff. During the meeting, personnel from the tech giant made the argument for why Google is fit for the contract.

The new contract will take the place of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) the Pentagon canceled in July. The $10 billion contract, which was with Microsoft, was canceled amid an intense legal battle involving Microsoft and Amazon.

For over a year, Amazon had been contesting the contract that Microsoft received in October 2019.

According to the Times, Google’s cloud business has recently done other projects with the Pentagon.

Since last year, the giant tech company has signed contracts with the US Air Force for using cloud computing for aircraft maintenance and pilot training.

It has also signed a contract with the US Navy for using artificial intelligence to detect and predict the maintenance needs of facilities and vessels.

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