Google signs $200 million AI military contract with the Pentagon to implement Gemini; 600 employees protest in vain

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Google has officially signed an approximately $200 million AI military contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, allowing the Pentagon to access Google commercial models via API for "any lawful government purpose." Over 600 Google employees, including DeepMind researchers, signed an open letter urging CEO Pichai to reject the deal, but ultimately failed to change the outcome. (Context: 600 Google employees protest: Reject Gemini's entry into the Pentagon's classified military network) (Background: Trump hints that the Department of Defense is highly likely to "reach an AI cooperation agreement" with Anthropic, praising: They are performing better and better) Earlier this week, the AI military contract between Google and the U.S. Department of Defense officially took effect. On the same day, an open letter of protest signed by over 600 Google employees was delivered to CEO Sundar Pichai’s inbox. This is not a coincidence, but a cross-section of the long-standing tug-of-war within Google: employees have different answers as to where the company should go, but the final decision-making power has always rested with management. Bloomberg reporters confirmed the details: the contract is worth approximately $200 million and allows the U.S. military to use Google AI systems for "any lawful government purpose." A Google spokesperson emphasized in a statement that this is an API access contract: the Pentagon can directly connect to Google's commercial models, but it does not include custom work or model development. "We believe that providing API access to commercial models on industry-standard terms, including running on Google infrastructure, is a responsible way to support national security." API access, simply put, allows the Pentagon's systems to directly "call" Google's AI models to obtain analytical results, but Google is not building exclusive tools from scratch for the military. Google also declared: "The company remains committed to the consensus between the public and private sectors: AI should not be used for mass surveillance within borders, or for autonomous weapons without appropriate human oversight." The timing of this contract is difficult to understand outside of a larger context. The Pentagon's partnership with Anthropic fell apart earlier this year, and it is currently attempting to expel Anthropic and its Claude AI tools from the U.S. defense supply chain while actively seeking new tech giant partners. Google's signing at this time is widely interpreted by the outside world as filling the void left by Anthropic's departure. Extended reading: The Pentagon showdown with Anthropic! Fully open Claude for military use "otherwise terminate the contract and leave" For Google, this is also a reaffirmation of its path. In 2018, Google employees protested the company's participation in the Pentagon's Project Maven (a military project using AI to analyze drone footage), which was described by Bloomberg reporters as the "core of modern American warfare." That protest led Google to eventually not renew the contract and publicly promise not to manufacture weapons or other potentially harmful technologies. But in 2025, Google quietly removed some restrictive language from its AI ethics policy. This new military contract is the first major milestone since the policy was loosened. It is worth mentioning that Google also quietly withdrew from a $100 million Pentagon competition during the same period. The project aimed to develop voice-controlled autonomous drone swarm technology. Internal documents obtained by Bloomberg show that the decision to withdraw came from an internal ethics review; however, Google's official public explanation was "insufficient resources," reflecting the company's consistent ambiguity on military AI issues. On the day the contract was signed, over 600 Google employees, including DeepMind researchers, delivered an open letter to Pichai. The letter stated: "We are Google employees deeply concerned about the ongoing negotiations between Google and the U.S. Department of Defense. As people working on AI, we know that these systems can concentrate power, and they do make mistakes." Employee concerns focused on two points: the risk of errors in AI systems in military contexts, and the irreversible consequences of power concentration. The protest letter's demand was clear: reject the contract. But in the end, management decided to sign the contract anyway. This is the second large-scale action by Google employees protesting a military AI contract, and the outcome is the exact opposite of 2018. The protest that year led the company to withdraw from Project Maven; this time, the protest letter and the contract existed almost on the same day, but the 600-person petition did not change any business decisions. Extended reading: 600 Google employees protest: Reject Gemini's entry into the Pentagon's classified military network

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