The Israeli government signed a major cloud-computing deal with Google LLC and Amazon Web Services as part of its Project Nimbus initiative. Under the agreement, the tech firms will build and operate cloud infrastructure within Israel to serve government and defense agencies.
The contract is reported to be worth about $1.2 billion and runs over seven years.
It includes provisions that prevent the companies from shutting off Israeli access, even if use of the services would violate their standard rules. Investigators say the deal also contains a “secret code” mechanism: if foreign authorities request data stored by the firms on behalf of Israel and are legally gagged, the companies must send coded payments to inform Israel of the request.
Google and Amazon say they comply with lawful orders and haven’t violated global laws. Israeli officials say the agreement protects national security and keeps data under Israeli control.
Because of this deal, Israel gains expanded ability to store, analyze, and move large volumes of data—defense-, intelligence-, or civilian-related—within its borders. The deal changes who controls key cloud infrastructure.