Joint Ukraine-NATO training and analysis team gets classified, AI-enabled Google Cloud
WASHINGTON — Google has been tapped to provide classified cloud services, including AI, to a unique collaboration between NATO and Ukraine whose mission is to analyze data and lessons-learned from the ongoing war with Russia, the company announced Monday.
Google said the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) had awarded a “multi-million dollar” contract for its Google Distributed Cloud to “handle classified workloads” for the nearly year-old Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC), which formally opened this February in the Polish town of Bydgoszcz, already a growing hub of NATO training, tech, and other alliance activities.
As a “unique” NATO partnership with a foreign country, according to its website, “JATEC identifies and supports the [application of] lessons from Russia’s war against Ukraine.” It also claims a leading role in NATO’s adoption of cloud computing: “The first place NATO will see these technologies at work is at JATEC.”
Google Cloud’s high-security “air-gapped” version also includes Gemini, machine translation, and other AI features, though not necessarily the full suite available on the internet-based version.
The Google Cloud announcement came on the opening day of NATO’s third public Cloud Conference, where 500 guests from government, industry, and academia heard Secretary General Mark Rutte extoll Ukraine’s innovative use of cloud computing and urge the Alliance to follow faster.
Rutte emphasized the importance of “a strong and also an innovative industry” on Monday. At an earlier, smaller summit in January NATO brought in 25 tech companies to discuss cloud computing for classified data. The value and timeline of Google Cloud’s contract are not public, only that it is a “multi-million dollar” award and that “integration of the [technology] will take place in the coming months.”
But European firms are unlikely to rejoice that Google won this award, especially after the even more American Palantir and its Maven Smart System were picked by NATO’s operational command to provide AI and big data for military intelligence.
The Problem With ‘Alliance Dynamics’
Europe is scrambling to shore up both its own defenses and its capacity to support Ukraine in the face of an increasingly erratic American ally — yet it still relies heavily on American tech giants for key technologies like artificial intelligence and even cloud computing. Hosting data and software (including AI) on cloud servers has become ubiquitous in the US military but remains an unsolved problem for the European half of NATO.
“Alliance dynamics — political, procedural, legal, and technical — impede successful cloud deployment across NATO,” lamented a June report from RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Because of Europe’s extensive and often conflicting regulations, the report continues, “the compliance burden is incredibly high.” Further, write co-authors Joseph Jarnecki and Noah Sylvia, “across NATO, there is little consensus on what constitutes ‘sovereign’ cloud. [These] divergent interpretations delay procurement, complicate interoperability, and drive fragmented investments.”
Major US providers like AWS, Oracle, Microsoft, and of course Google — each of which has a piece of a massive Pentagon cloud service initiative called JWCC — all tout their ability to provide various forms of “sovereign cloud.” In essence, “sovereign” means not only customized to local needs but run under strict local control, with key infrastructure usually located in-country and often operated by a local partner firm. Such systems are intended to be more secure than standard internet-based cloud computing.
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At the highest level of security, as with Google Cloud’s new offering for JATEC, such cloud computing systems can be “air-gapped.” In essence, all an air-gapped system’s software and data are hosted on a government intranet, with no connection (cable, wireless, or otherwise) to the global internet.
The Google system “provides a hardened, air-gapped environment, disconnected from the internet and public cloud, ensuring that NCIA’s highly sensitive data remains under its direct control and within NATO’s sovereign territory,” the press release says. “This platform will also give NCIA enhanced analytical capabilities to provide operational efficiencies across NATO, allies, and partners.”
An air-gapped network is hardly invulnerable — the US and Israel famously were accused of using thumb drives to smuggle the Stuxnet virus into closed networks at Iranian nuclear sites — but it’s significantly harder to crack, making it a better choice for classified information.
“NCIA is committed to leveraging next-generation technology, including AI, to enhance NATO’s operational capabilities and safeguard the Alliance’s digital environment,” Antonio Calderon, the agency’s chief technology officer, said in a statement. “Through this collaboration [with Google], we will deliver a secure, resilient and scalable cloud environment for JATEC that meets the highest standards required to protect highly sensitive data.”
What sensitive data, specifically, is at stake? While the contract announcement doesn’t offer details, the Centre’s own website offers some big hints as to what it works on.
JATEC “will serve as a catalyst for strengthening NATO-Ukraine relations and delivering rapid solutions and long-term benefits for both NATO and Ukraine,” the site says. That includes improving Ukraine-NATO “interoperability” — which typically refers to easing data-sharing between the different nations’ digital networks. Combine that role with the Centre’s mission to “apply lessons from how Russia is fighting its war in Ukraine,” its leading role in NATO adoption of classified cloud, and its co-location with NATO’s Joint Force Training Centre in Bydgoszcz, there’s a strong implication that JATEC will be passing masses of combat data from Ukraine to NATO to inform current training and future planning.
JATEC will have “up to 74” NATO and Ukrainian personnel when its Polish headquarters is fully staffed. It reports across the Atlantic to Allied Command – Transformation, a four-star NATO headquarters located in Norfolk, Va., whose mission is to lead modernization of the alliance’s technology, strategy, and institutions.
