Google Cloud reported Wednesday that a US Department of Defense (DoD) unit would use its Anthos technology to develop a multi-cloud management network to track and respond to cyber threats across the globe. The contract is specifically for the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a DOD organization that focuses on scaling commercial technology across the Pentagon as a whole. For its part, Google dropped out of the bidding process for JEDI in late 2018. The tech giant admitted that despite its government certifications, there were parts of the contract out of control. Google also said it had dropped out of the running partly because its AI principles against developing AI for arms or other software designed specifically to harm people may have been inconsistent with the deal. Google has also released the Anthos platform to handle hybrid and multi-cloud activities, offering a way to undertake more workloads in the enterprise. It made Anthos generally available for AWS last month, while Anthos debuted in preview for Azure. Under the latest Security Innovation Unit contract Google will provide the agency with real-time network surveillance, access control and complete audit trails. The DIU will use Istio for safe communication with the server, and switches to Netskope for cloud protection. Mike Daniels, VP of Global Public Sector at Google Cloud, said in a statement that the company is “honored to partner with DIU on this critical initiative to protect its network against bad actors that pose threats to our national security.”
