Google is ‘all in’ on government business

Three years ago, tech giant Google placed a bet on government business, launching a new division — Google Public Sector — to better serve the massive market of federal, state and local, and defense customers that collectively spend more than $100 billion on IT each year.

Last week, Google Public Sector’s cloud computing platform, Google Distributed Cloud, achieved a major milestone, meeting the Defense Department’s Impact Level 6 security accreditation.

This accreditation means Google’s cloud suite and a growing number of its AI tools are available to all feasible government customers. Everything from the least sensitive public data to the most sensitive, classified national security data exchanged over air-gapped defense and intelligence networks can now run on and through Google Cloud.

“This authorization comes at a crucial time, as the digital landscape is becoming increasingly complex, and the need for robust security measures is growing more urgent,” Leigh Palmer, vice president of technology, delivery and operations for Google Public Sector said in a May 28 blog post. “Google Public Sector is now able to provide DOD customers with a secure, compliant, and cutting-edge cloud environment at IL6, enabling them to leverage the full power of GDC for their most sensitive Secret classified data and applications.”

The latest accreditation represents the culmination of nearly three years’ worth of work led by Google Public Sector Chief Executive Officer Karen Dahut. No stranger to government contracting — she formerly led Booz Allen Hamilton’s $4 billion defense portfolio — Dahut was charged with building up the new business line, and she is unofficially the Google face perhaps most responsible for rebuilding the company’s relationship with government following a public falling out with DOD over the Maven project in 2018.

If Google Public Sector’s growing number of government and defense customers is any indication, Dahut’s efforts have been successful. Since 2022, Google has added each military branch and more than two dozen large federal agencies as customers, according to data from GovTribe, and it has snagged awards to compete with other cloud providers for task orders on two major multibillion dollar contracts: the intelligence community’s C2E and the Pentagon’s Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability contract. 

Task orders on those vehicles are rarely made public, but contracting documents indicate Google Public Sector was awarded the U.S. Navy’s ONENET contract in October to “provide highly specialized cloud services” for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Google Public Sector does not publicly disclose revenue figures, but Google Cloud and its public sector cloud business have both experienced year-over-year revenue growth since 2022, with Google Cloud capturing $12.3 billion across all its business in the first quarter of 2025. 

“We want to bring our technology, we want to bring our cloud and we want to bring our network and our AI-optimized stack to bear on the government mission,” Dahut said on the sidelines of Google Cloud Next in April.

Dahut’s comments in April coincided with another major effort on Google Public Sector’s part: negotiating a 71% discount off pricing on its Workspace software suite to all government customers through Sept. 30. Google Public Sector estimated that the move — treating the government as a single customer — could save agencies as much as $2 billion over three years. It was the first agreement under the General Services Administration’s DOGE-approved OneGov effort that has since seen Adobe and Salesforce negotiate similar discounts, and a slew of others are coming to the negotiation table with GSA.

While acknowledging the major changes brought by the Trump administration to government contracting, the reduction in federal workforce and major shifts in priorities, Dahut said Google is well-positioned to work with the administration.

“I am feeling super confident in our ability to work with this administration to show them that Google is all in,” Dahut said. “All of these years of having served this industry, I feel like this is the first time I feel like the administration is really willing to make a change.”

A veteran to administration changes, Dahut said this transition has been unlike any other.

“This is the most disruptive, and I mean that in a really positive way, because they are looking at this as an opportunity to bring real disruption to the way that government operates,” she said. “To drive efficiency, to drive cost effectiveness, to bring new emerging technology to bear to government, and to really make a difference for enterprise operations or mission.”