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The questions
nobody is answering
When the deal was announced,
tech publication The Register
immediately fired off a pointed
question to the MoD: will US
security services have access
to and use the same Google
sovereign cloud as the UK? The
MoD did not answer. They were
also asked to clarify what Defence
Secretary Healey meant by "secret
tech" – and what the Google
contract means for existing cloud
deals with AWS and Microsoft
Azure. Silence, again.
This matters enormously. Amazon
Web Services and Microsoft Azure
already provide significant cloud
services to defence customers,
while Oracle Cloud is also in use.
Britain's military data is now spread
across multiple American tech
giants – a fact that sits uneasily
with the concept of "sovereignty."
The word itself deserves scrutiny.
A truly sovereign system means a
nation has full control – over its
data, its people, its infrastructure,
and critically, its ability to
exit if something goes wrong.
Announcements are intent.
Delivery is proof. The MoD and
Google still need to demonstrate
a working operating model in
practice – staffing cleared UK
teams, running incidents under UK
control, and producing repeatable
evidence. Until those playbooks
are proven on real workloads, this
remains promising rather than
bankable.
Big tech goes to war
The Google deal isn't happening
in isolation. Across the Western
world, defence ministries are
increasingly turning to Silicon
Valley to solve problems that
traditional defence contractors
simply can't. AI, cloud computing,
and data analytics have become
as strategically important as tanks
and missiles – and the expertise
lies firmly in the private sector.
Most defence organisations
remain in the early stages of AI
adoption, due in part to industryrelated operational risks and
regulatory requirements. But the
pressure to modernise is immense.
The UK government plans to
construct a Digital Targeting Web
by 2027, an ambitious network
that will underpin battlefield
decision-making in future
conflicts. The Google cloud deal is
one of the building blocks.
For Google itself, the strategic
value extends well beyond the
£400 million fee. A foothold in UK
national security means credibility
with other governments, influence
over defence AI standards, and
access to some of the world's most
demanding engineering problems.
It's a relationship that, once
established, is very hard to unpick.
The bigger picture
Whether you find this deal
reassuring or alarming largely
depends on how much you
trust the relationship between
governments and big tech.
Proponents will argue that Britain
simply cannot build and maintain
cutting-edge cloud infrastructure
on its own, and that
partnering with Google, under
strict contractual controls, is the
pragmatic choice.
Critics will counter that handing
classified military data to any
private company, however
well-intentioned, however tightly
contracted, is an irreversible shift
in the balance of power. And that
the questions the MoD refused to
answer are precisely the ones that
matter most.
One thing is certain: the age of
the traditional defence contractor
– the BAE Systems, the Raytheons,
the Lockheed Martins – now has
serious competition from a new
kind of arms dealer. One that
doesn't make weapons. It makes
the infrastructure that makes
weapons work.
Britain just paid £400 million to
find out what that means.
“ Announcements are intent.
Delivery is proof. The MoD
and Google still need to
demonstrate a working
operating model in practice ”
dtc-uk.com
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