Project Nimbus () is a

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

project of the Israeli government and its military.

Overview

The Israeli Finance Ministry announced in April 2021 that the contract is to provide "the government, the defense establishment, and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution." Through a $1.2 billion contract, technology companies

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

(

Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google that provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, Computer data storage, data storage, Data analysis, data analytics, and machine learnin ...

) and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

(

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

) were selected to provide

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i government agencies with

services, including

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

. Under the contract, the companies will establish local cloud sites that will "keep information within Israel's borders under strict security guidelines." According to a Google spokesperson, the contract is for workloads related to "finance, healthcare, transportation, and education" and does not deal with highly sensitive or classified information. Moreover, the tech companies are contractually forbidden from denying service to any particular entities of the Israeli government. Although Project Nimbus' specific mission has not yet been revealed,

's AI tools could give the Israeli military and security services the capability for facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking & sentiment analysis – tools that have previously been used by

U.S. Customs and Border Protection United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilita ...

for

border surveillance Borders are generally defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ...

. Project Nimbus has four planned phases: the first is purchasing and constructing the cloud infrastructure, the second is crafting government policy for moving operations onto the cloud, the third is moving operations to the cloud, and the fourth is implementing and optimizing cloud operations. The terms Israel set for the project contractually forbid Amazon and Google from halting services due to boycott pressure. A Google spokesperson said that all Google Cloud customers must abide by its terms of service which prohibit customers from using its services to violate people's legal rights or engage in violence, but internal documents from both Google and the Israeli government contradict this claim.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Circa 2022, the contract drew rebuke and condemnation from the companies' shareholders as well as their employees, over concerns that the project would lead to further abuses of Palestinians' human rights in the context of the ongoing occupation and the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...

. Specifically, they voice concern over how the technology will enable further

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

of Palestinians and unlawful

data collection Data collection or data gathering is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. Data collection is a research com ...

on them as well as facilitate the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land. Ariel Koren, who had worked as a marketing manager for Google's educational products and was an outspoken opponent of the project, was given the ultimatum of moving to

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

within 17 days or losing her job. In a letter announcing her resignation to her colleagues, Koren wrote that Google "systematically silences Palestinian, Jewish, Arab and Muslim voices concerned about Google's complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights—to the point of formally retaliating against workers and creating an environment of fear," reflecting her view that the ultimatum came in retaliation for her opposition to and organization against the project. She filed retaliation complaints with Google's human resources department and the

National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States that enforces United States labor law, U.S. labor law in relation to collect ...

(NLRB), which dismissed her case based on lack of evidence. In 2022, Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change launched a campaign called No Tech For Apartheid – also known as #NoTechForApartheid – opposing the project. More than 200 Google workers joined a protest group named after this campaign, who argue that the relative lack of oversight for the project mean it will likely be used for violent purposes. In March 2024, a Google Cloud software engineer was fired after a video of them shouting "I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide," in reference to Project Nimbus, at a company event went viral. In April, dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at Google's New York & Sunnyvale Headquarters to protest against Google supplying cloud computing software to the Israeli government. Employees occupied the office of Google Cloud chief executive

Thomas Kurian Thomas Kurian (born 1966) is an Indian-American business executive and Chief executive officer, Chief Executive Officer of Google Cloud Platform, Google Cloud (under Alphabet Inc.) since 2019. In 2024, Gold House recognized him as one of the most ...

. Nine employees were charged with trespassing and 28 were fired. Further terminations brought the total of related staff cuts to 50. In April, former Google employees fired for protesting with #NoTechForApartheid, citing an article in '' +972 Magazine'', expressed concerns over Israel's current use of AI-assisted targeting in the Gaza Strip: a program named “The Gospel” categorizes buildings as military bases, while programs called “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy” identify and falsely classify Palestinian civilians as 'terrorists' and track their movements for target selection. In December 2024, a

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

article reported that Google lawyers were worried that "Google Cloud services could be used for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights violations, including Israeli activity in the West Bank." at least as early as four months before the Nimbus contract was signed.

References

{{Gaza war 2021 establishments in Israel Amazon Web Services Criticism of Google Google Cloud Government of Israel Human rights in Palestine Israel Defense Forces Military projects Surveillance databases Projects established in 2021

Overview

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

See also

References