Google has reportedly collaborated with the Israel Defense Forces on an AI contract.

According to company documents obtained by the Israeli military, Google cooperated with the Israeli military immediately after the ground forces invaded the Gaza Strip and began providing AI services, beating Amazon. washington post.

In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, employees from Google’s cloud division worked directly with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Although the company has told both the public and employees that Google only works with private government departments, the documents say it shows.

Weeks after the war began, employees of Google’s cloud division revealed that they had escalated requests from IDF forces for access to Google’s AI technology. mail. In another document, an employee warned that Google must respond quickly to the military’s requests or Israel will turn to Amazon for its cloud computing needs. In a November 2023 document, one employee thanked a colleague for handling the IDF’s request. Several months later, employees requested additional access to AI tools for the IDF.

Meanwhile, Google punished employees who protested Project Nimbus, Israel’s $1.2 billion contract for Google and Amazon’s cloud computing services. Google fired 28 employees who staged sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York and California, some of whom were arrested during the protests.

At the same time, Google denied that it was cooperating with the Israeli military. “The Nimbus agreement makes it very clear that it is for workloads run on commercial clouds by Israeli government ministries that have agreed to abide by our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policies,” said Anna Kowalczyk, external communications manager at Google Cloud. said. The Verge “This operation is not targeting highly sensitive, classified or military workloads related to weapons or intelligence services,” Kowalczyk said.

Google did not immediately respond to this. The VergeThis is a request for your opinion.