To UCL President & Provost Michael Spence,
We are writing on behalf of the 937 UCL staff who have signed a pledge committing to the terms of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to raise our urgent concerns about the potential of legal risk and reputational damage to UCL given its close ties to Google DeepMind and its parent companies.
The BDS movement mobilises international solidarity towards ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, apartheid regime, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. A core element of the pledge is to refuse to participate in any formal or informal engagement with any corporation involved in supporting Israeli occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine, and to demand that UCL end its investments, procurement contracts and partnerships with companies funding and supplying weapons to the Israeli military.
We note that in July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in and occupation of Palestinian territories is unlawful and that Israel must comply with the determination immediately. Further, in September 2025, an International United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
We therefore write to alert you to a company with which UCL has extensive links that risk making UCL complicit in the genocide against the Palestinian people: this is Google DeepMind and its parent companies, Google and Alphabet.
Since 2021, Google has been providing cloud services to the Israeli government under Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract it shares with Amazon. Project Nimbus provides cloud services to all branches of the Israeli government, including the Israeli military, the Israeli Security Agency (Shabak / “Shin Bet”), the Israeli Police, and Prison Services, Israeli aerospace industries and weapons manufacturers (e.g., Rafael), as well as government agencies that are related to Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military has publicly admitted to using Google Cloud services to enhance its capabilities during its war on Gaza; since the start of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, Google has approved urgent requests from the Israeli Ministry of Defense to expand its use of Google’s AI services and technologies, including Google DeepMind’s Gemini generative AI language model. Further, in March 2024, the Israeli military signed a direct contract with Google to expand its access to Google Cloud. The Israeli military has also used Google’s Photos’ facial recognition features as part of its mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza during the war.
Crucially, none of Google’s contracts with the Israeli government and the Israeli military include Google’s standard terms of use and instead give the Israeli government total discretion in using Google’s products. In an alarming move, in February 2025, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, lifted a ban on using its AI tools for military purposes, such as developing weapons and surveillance tools. In July 2025, the UN issued a report on corporate complicity in directly supporting Israeli human rights violations, war crimes & genocide in Gaza. The report identified Google as a key actor in this regard and called for immediate accountability to international law.
Despite Google’s explicit ties with Israel and its military apparatus, which have made Google directly linked and complicit in Israeli human rights violations, war crimes and genocide in Gaza, UCL still maintains a deep and extensive network of ties with Google and DeepMind, as well as investments in Alphabet, their parent company.
These ties risk making UCL complicit in the genocide, and we have therefore launched a UCL staff, student and alumni campaign that calls on UCL to cut all of its ties with Google DeepMind, Google and Alphabet, and that focuses, in particular, on these core demands:
- UCL should divest immediately from Alphabet
- UCL should rescind the Honorary Fellowship awarded to Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind
- UCL should rescind all other Honorary Appointments it has given to Google DeepMind staff, and no further such Honorary Appointments or Fellowships should be awarded
- UCL should terminate the participation of Google DeepMind in teaching, public engagement and research at UCL
- UCL should stop accepting philanthropic sponsorship from Google DeepMind
- UCL should issue a public statement confirming the cessation of its relationships with Google DeepMind, Google and Alphabet
We are writing to you now to ask for the support of yourself and UCL Council in taking swift action on these campaign demands. We believe that the UCL community will only be strengthened by clear leadership that divests our institution of ties to corporations that are enabling and supporting occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
BDS@UCL Staff Group
sent by email 27 October 2025