3 Years After the Project Maven Uproar, Google Cozies to the Pentagon

In 2018, thousands of Google employees protested a Pentagon contract dubbed Project Maven that used the company’s artificial intelligence technology to analyze drone surveillance footage. Google said it wouldn’t renew the contract and announced guiding principles for future AI projects that forbid work on weapons and surveillance projects “violating internationally accepted norms.”

At the same time, Google made clear it would still seek defense contracts. “While we are not developing AI for use in weapons,” CEO Sundar Pichai wrote, “we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas.”

In the three years since, Google has stayed true to his word. The company has built a significant line of business atop deep relationships with defense and intelligence agencies, including a series of contracts that haven’t drawn the same scrutiny or outcry as Project Maven.

Google’s thriving defense portfolio includes a project detecting corrosion on Navy vessels by applying machine learning to drone imagery and another supporting aircraft maintenance for the Air Force. Google also supplies cloud security technology to the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, set up to help the agency work more closely with tech companies. In November 2020, Google won a piece of a large CIA cloud contract. And in May, it jointly won a $1.3 billion deal with Amazon to supply cloud services to the Israeli government, including its defense agencies.

Events this month suggest there may be more big defense deals in Google’s future. Two weeks ago the company said it had received a Pentagon security certification allowing it to handle “controlled” government information. The same day, The New York Times reported that Google was preparing a bid for the Pentagon’s most significant cloud contract yet, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability. Not long after, Google launched a webpage touting its contracts and support for the “critical missions of [its] military and national security personnel,” and its cloud chief Thomas Kurian was photographed, beaming, with the Army’s chief information officer. In a blog post Friday, Kurian confirmed his interest in the warfighter cloud project, saying Google will serve “proudly” if selected and will adhere to its AI principles.

The Pentagon likes what it sees. Mike Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, said this month that a vocal minority of protesters caught Google “flat footed” a few years ago, but management had since made clear “they want to pursue business” with the Department of Defense. “Personally I think we need Google,” he said. “I’m glad to see the change.”

Google declined to comment and referred WIRED to Kurian’s blog post. He has led Google’s cloud unit since 2019 and previously had a long tenure at Oracle, known for a sales-driven culture and comfort with US defense and intelligence agencies—the CIA was its first customer.