The recent investigation by the publication Wared revealed that Project Nimbus, the large cloud project contracted by Google and Amazon with the Israeli government, has closer ties with the Israeli armed forces (IDF) than previously known.
On April 16, police entered Google offices in New York and California to detain several employees protesting against the $1.2 billion contract. Employees from both companies express concern that this contract implicates them in Israeli hostilities and the mistreatment of Palestinian civilians.
Google’s official representatives maintain that Project Nimbus is not related to military activities and is not utilized for weapons or intelligence purposes. However, data collected by Wired shows that the IDF has been a central participant in the project from the outset, using it for its own needs.
At a conference in February dedicated to Project Nimbus, Israel’s National Cybersecurity Directorate head Gabi Portnoy acknowledged that cloud technologies supported hostilities against Hamas, contrary to Google’s claim that the project is non-military in nature.
Various documents and public statements corroborate the IDF’s active involvement in the development of Project Nimbus, with the IDF maintaining separate access to the Nimbus infrastructure, as reported by Wired.
The Nimbus project commenced in 2019 as a significant update to Israeli government technologies. Led by the Ministry of Finance of Israel, the project entailed establishing new data centers and leveraging cloud services for data storage, analysis, and application development.
Throughout the development process, numerous documents and statements indicated the IDF’s participation in Project Nimbus. In 2022, the Ministry of Finance declared the IDF as a full partner in the project since its inception.
In 2021, Google and Amazon secured the Project Nimbus contract over Microsoft and Oracle. A 2021 Israeli government press release stated that Nimbus would serve government entities, security services, and other organizations.
Wared also discovered that the IDF continues to actively utilize Google and Amazon through Nimbus, with access to AI technologies for military applications such as facial recognition and sentiment analysis, as outlined in the contract.
Social media posts from Israeli officials, Amazon and Google employees affirm the close ties between the Israeli military and the Nimbus project. In 2023, the head of the Israeli government technology unit mentioned on LinkedIn that the cloud technologies conference included IDF representatives and defense industry companies.
Recent protests against Project Nimbus have intensified, especially following the resumption of conflict between Israel and Hamas. Google and Amazon employees protesting the contract argue that the companies should cease cooperation with the Israeli military to avoid complicity in human rights violations.