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Google pursuit of JWCC among issues of top concern at TGIF meeting

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Thomas Kurian (chief executive officer, cloud services, Google LLC) speaks at the Google Cloud Next’19 event, San Francisco, California on Tuesday April 9, 2019. It brings together experts from the industry to talk about cloud computing.

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Take a look at Google’sWeekly all-hands meeting Thursday afternoon at CEO Sundar PichaiThomas Kurian, cloud boss, addressed concerns regarding the potential pursuit by the Defense Department of multibillion dollar cloud deals.

An employee in the internal system Dory cast so many votes about Google’s involvement in the government’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability(JWCC), program that the question was raised to the top executives.

Pichai aloud the question. It was a reference to a New York TimesReport from this month. This story stated that Google was actively seeking JWCC after reading the Pentagon canceledA prior agreement, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Contract (JEDI), was approved in July. Nearly 1,000 employees voted for the question.

CNBC obtained the audio, also known as TGIF and viewed a snapshot of the question.

According to the NYT, Google has been aggressively seeking the DoD Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability even though it did not bid for its predecessor (JEDI), “Pichai read from the Dory query. “What changed? How did the bid change and is it still ok?

Kurian responded by trying to separate the contract with JEDI. A $10 billion deal, Kurian was able to do this. This led to legal action between Kurian. Amazon MicrosoftBefore the government cancelled the entire contract.

Kurian stated that “recently there has been some discussion about Google’s interests in participating in this framework.” Kurian joined Google after a long and successful career. Oracle.

Kurian stated, reading from a script, “If we are selected as compliant vendors,” With no conflicts to Google’s AI principles, there will be many opportunities to leverage our product expertise and engineering knowledge.

Google created its AI principles following. declining to renewProject Maven is a federal contract that enabled the government to use artificial intelligence to interpret and analyze drone footage. A petition was signed by several thousand people and many others protesting the involvement of Google.

Google dropped outKurian stated that the JEDI contract bidding was not open because he could not be certain it would conform to the company’s AI principles.

Kurian, on Thursday, described the DoD as the most important employer with almost 3 million workers. Kurian explained that the JWCC was created to provide a procurement framework for all 28 DoD agencies. He highlighted the other services Google provides the U.S government such as weather forecasts, helping to detect and treat cancer, helping with maintenance of aircraft, and working with military personnel.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still major shareholders in Alphabet. Pichai, Kurian and other employees have to navigate a delicate issue. Google tries both to boost its cloud computing division with prominent deals and placate a politically-charged employee base. Google founders Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Alphabet are major shareholders. retiredIn 2019, their executives positions will be dramatically changed. cultural shiftA company known once for its ideas.

Kurian does not expect his entire staff to join him in the JWCC.

Kurian explained that “We know not everyone Googler will be happy with this decision.” We believe that Google Cloud should serve the government in the best possible way and with the highest quality work.

‘No single vendor’

Google continued to provide more information on this topic in an article. blog postKurian’s Thursday night post. Kurian wrote that the JWCC was “essential for the success of both the Department and government in reducing cost, driving innovation and increasing productivity and cybersecurity.” He also stated that DoD should seek out assistance from multiple vendors, such as Google Cloud.

Kurian stressed this point during the meeting by telling employees that several vendors would be involved in the deal. This could give each employee the opportunity to decide where to concentrate their efforts.

“That doesn’t mean that any one vendor should do everything within the framework,” he stated.

Kurian stated that Google has not submitted a bid and does not know the full details of the proposal as the request has yet to be sent by government. Kurian didn’t mention one detail in the Times article, where he said that Google’s cloud unit had already declared the work a priority and made it a Code Yellow. This allows Google to recruit engineers for the military project.

CNBC was informed by a Google spokesperson that multi-cloud strategies are the best. The spokesperson also stated in an email that future opportunities for bids will be evaluated with customers from the public sector, which includes the DoD.

Pichai spoke at the Thursday meeting, telling employees that he hopes the discussions will clarify the company’s position.

He stated that he believes the company is committed to working in accordance with its AI principles with the government. 

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