It has been reported that a few weeks after the Hamas militants attacked Israel, Google rushed to provide access to the company’s artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli Ministry of Defense so that the latter would not turn to its cloud competitor Amazon.
It has been reported that a few weeks after the Hamas militants attacked Israel, Google rushed to provide access to the company’s artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli Ministry of Defense so that the latter would not turn to its cloud competitor Amazon.
From the first weeks of the war between Israel and Gaza, Google employees worked to ensure that the Israeli military had access to the company’s latest artificial intelligence technologies, The Washington Post reported, citing documents obtained by the Washington Post.
Documents detailing projects within Google’s cloud division indicate that the Israeli ministry urgently wanted to expand its use of a Google service called Vertex, which customers can use to apply AI algorithms to their own data.
According to available information, on October 7, 2023, a few weeks after the Hamas militants attacked Israel, a Google employee from the cloud division was sending requests for expanded access to the company’s artificial intelligence technology from the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
In the same documents, a Google employee warned the company that delays could lead the Israeli military to turn to Amazon, the corporation’s cloud competitor, which also works with the Israeli government under the Nimbus contract.
According to the document from mid-November 2023, the employee thanks a colleague for his help in fulfilling the Ministry of Defense request. In the spring and summer of 2024, Google employees requested additional access to AI technologies for the Israeli Armed Forces (IDF). In late November 2024, an employee of the corporation requested access to Gemini AI technology for the Israeli military, which wanted to develop its own AI assistant for document and audio processing.
It is not clear exactly how the Israeli Ministry of Defense planned to use Google’s AI technology or what tasks for military operations could be accomplished with its help.
Representatives of the Israeli military, Google and Amazon declined to comment on this situation to The Washington Post.
Recall that earlier in April 2024, Google fired more than 50 employees who protested against unfavorable working conditions and military contracts for Israel.
