THE UK Government has announced a major new partnership with Google DeepMind just hours after the company’s co-founder said the UN was antisemitic and suggested it could not be trusted.
On Wednesday, the Labour administration said it would be partnering with Google Cloud and DeepMind – the firm’s AI wing – in order to “modernise government services millions of people use every day”.
A press release from the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said Google would help bodies like the NHS or local councils “move from legacy technology to the latest ‘secure-by-design’ cloud technology”.
Speaking at a Google Cloud summit in London on Thursday, Labour's Tech Secretary Peter Kyle said the new partnership would see "much more collaboration" between Google's "UK AI lab, DeepMind, and my own AI developers in my department, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with a new digital centre of government".
The news came just hours after the Washington Post reported that Sergey Brin – who as one of the co-founders of Google is among the richest people in the world – had told Google DeepMind staff that the UN was “transparently antisemitic”.
A report from the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, had named Google and its parent company Alphabet as benefitting financially from a genocide being perpetrated by Israel.
“As Israel’s apartheid, military and population-control systems generate increasing volumes of data, its reliance on cloud storage and computing has grown,” Albanese reported. “In 2021, Israel awarded Alphabet Inc (Google) and Amazon.com Inc. a $1.2 billion contract (Project Nimbus) – largely funded through Ministry of Defense expenditure – to provide core tech infrastructure.
“Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon grant Israel virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies, enhancing data processing, decision-making and surveillance/analysis capacities … Their Israel-located servers ensure data sovereignty and a shield from accountability, under favourable contracts offering minimal restrictions or oversight.
“In July 2024, an Israeli colonel described cloud tech as ‘a weapon in every sense of the word’, citing these companies.”
The Washington Post reported that, in response to the report, Brin told Google DeepMind staff: “With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides.
“I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organisations like the UN in relation to these issues.”
Brin then told that paper: “My comments came in response to an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “Our strategic partnership with Google sets out how it will upskill civil servants in AI and tech and help us replace archaic technology that slows public services and costs the taxpayer a fortune. Partnerships like these will be essential in making sure public services are fit for the 21st century.
“It is wrong to imply that our commercial relationships have any bearing on foreign policy on these sensitive matters.”
