A growing wave of unrest has hit DeepMind’s London offices. DeepMind, founded in 2010 and acquired by Google in 2014, now faces internal resistance as approximately 300 employees move to unionise under the Communication Workers Union (CWU) — one of the United Kingdom’s major trade unions, traditionally representing workers in telecommunications, postal services, engineering, and financial sectors, now expanding into technology.
The catalyst? Mounting concerns over DeepMind’s links to defence projects and a controversial $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defence under Project Nimbus. This contract, signed between the Israeli government and companies Google and Amazon, provides technological infrastructure — servers, databases, and data analytics — to Israel’s Ministry of Defence and other governmental agencies.
The employees’ action follows Google’s decision in February 2025 to drop its 2018 pledge against developing AI technologies likely to cause harm, including those used for weapons and surveillance. This policy reversal has triggered widespread dissatisfaction within DeepMind, a company originally celebrated for its commitment to ethical AI.
DeepMind, led by Nobel laureate Sir Demis Hassabis, faces pressure from Alphabet to find stronger commercial applications for AI. Employees argue that the technologies they develop — among the most advanced AI systems globally — could now be implicated in military operations, particularly ongoing conflicts such as the war in Gaza.
Reports suggesting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are using AI to generate assassination targets have heightened internal alarm, even though direct links to DeepMind’s technology remain unconfirmed. “We are putting two and two together,” said one engineer involved in the union drive. “People don’t want their work used for conflict.”
The unrest is tangible:
- Five resignations at DeepMind have been directly linked to dissatisfaction with Google’s defence ties and ethical reversals.
- Staff sent a formal letter in May 2024 urging leadership to abandon military contracts — an appeal that was rejected.
- In parallel, Google fired US employees who staged sit-ins protesting Project Nimbus.
Google’s official stance remains that it is developing and deploying AI responsibly, acknowledging that “the landscape has changed significantly” since its original ethical commitments. Yet for many DeepMind employees, these changes represent a profound betrayal of the company’s founding mission.
As one union member put it starkly: “We are sacrificing morals for greed.“
The coming months could mark a pivotal moment not only for DeepMind’s internal culture but also for the future role of AI in global security. Whether corporate interests or employee-driven ethics will prevail remains to be seen — but the battle lines have been clearly drawn.
