Google out of the Pentagon's $ 10 billion cloud computing race

Google will not be competing for a $ 10 billion opportunity for the construction of the Ministry of Defense's cloud computing contract, the company said Tuesday, noting that the project could conflict with its market values. Company in the use of artificial intelligence.

The contract, known as the Common Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, provides for a gigantic cloud computing infrastructure that can handle classified US military data and build new defense capabilities. The offers are due on October 12th.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Google announced that it was abandoning its bid for ethical reasons and that it was missing some government certifications. The move was reported for the first time by Bloomberg News.

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"We are not bidding on the JEDI contract because, first, we could not ensure that it would be consistent with our AI principles and second, we determined that certain parts of the contract were outside the scope of our current government certifications" A Google representative said in the statement, adding that the company was working with the US government in many areas. "We will continue our strategic work to help state, local and federal clients modernize their infrastructure and meet their essential requirements.

Google is questioning more broadly how the world's most advanced artificial intelligence algorithms should be applied to national defense work. In early June, the company announced that it would abandon a Defense Department project to apply its artificial intelligence algorithms to video analysis of a drone, claiming that 39, it would not apply to subsequent contracts at the end of its contract, next year. This decision followed pressure from employees who opposed the company's involvement in a controversial and protracted drone war.

This contract, known as Project Maven, is designed to automate the analysis of surveillance images collected by US military drones, a task that has been managed directly for years by the Air Force. Diane Greene, chief executive of Google Cloud, said at the time that the company could not control the "downstream uses" of the technology. The company then announced that it would prohibit the development of artificial intelligence software that can be used in weapons systems.

"We believe that the uses of our cloud and artificial intelligence will be extremely positive for the world, and we also recognize that we can not control all downstream uses of our technology," wrote Greene.

JEDI's cloud contract would potentially have a much larger exposure to the Pentagon's advanced weapons systems. The Pentagon said it already offered individual clouds, many of which were secretly built to allow classified military programs.

Senior Pentagon officials said the JEDI contract would account for about 16 percent of the department's total cloud-related work, including many dematerialization efforts by the Defense Department. They also said that the JEDI cloud would be used as a springboard for undeveloped military systems.

The development of the system "will revolutionize the way we fight and win wars," Defense Department Information Officer Dana Deasy said in a recent interview.

In its statement announcing the withdrawal of its offer, Google also criticized the decision of the Pentagon to award the JEDI contract to a single supplier, saying that a "multilayer" approach would have allowed the department to better match different solutions to different charges working. IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have strongly criticized the Pentagon's approach and have even initiated a lawsuit to cancel it, saying the project was falsely tilted in favor of Amazon.com.

Amazon said they prefer the single-cloud approach for the JEDI contract. Amazon and Microsoft are the current leaders in the cloud market. Competitors are concerned that Amazon is at the center of the JEDI price as it has been the CIA's leading cloud provider for years and the Pentagon RFP includes very specific requirements. that only Amazon is likely to satisfy. (The director and founder of Amazon, Jeffrey P. Bezos, is owner of The Post.)

"If the JEDI contract had been open to multiple vendors, we would have presented a compelling solution for some parties," said a Google representative. "As new technologies become more available, customers should be able to take advantage of this innovation."