Around 200 Stanford students walked out of their graduation as Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke, protesting the company's $1.2 billion 'Project Nimbus' cloud and AI contract with Israel. Organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, the protest is part of a wider movement on U.S. campuses. Protesters held an alternative ceremony while Pichai delivered a speech that avoided controversial topics like AI.
Stanford graduation walkout
- ▪Around 200 Stanford University students walked out of their graduation ceremony on June 14, 2026, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai began his speech
- ▪Protesting students carried Palestinian flags and banners with slogans like "Genocide Runs on Google" and "ICE spies with Google AI."
- ▪As they marched out of the stadium, some students chanted "free, free Palestine."
- ▪The walkout was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other groups
Project Nimbus contract
- ▪Critics allege Project Nimbus provides AI-powered data harvesting used for facial recognition and object tracking
- ▪The protest targeted Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing and AI contract signed in 2021 between Google, Amazon, and the Israeli government
- ▪Google states the Project Nimbus contract is not for highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services
- ▪In early 2026, Google fired approximately 50 employees who participated in sit-in protests against the Project Nimbus deal
- ▪The protest also cited Google's alleged collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and companies like Palantir
Campus pro-Palestinian protest movement
- ▪The walkout is part of a broader movement of pro-Palestinian activism on U.S. college campuses since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023
- ▪This was the third consecutive year that activist groups organized a walkout during Stanford's commencement to support Palestine
- ▪The Crowd Counting Consortium has recorded over 3,700 days of protest activity across more than 500 schools, with over 3,000 arrests nationwide
AI-themed graduation speech backlash
- ▪Pichai's remarks focused on optimism, tackling difficult challenges, and pursuing work that excites the graduates
- ▪Sundar Pichai's speech largely avoided the topic of AI, a subject that has drawn boos for other tech-affiliated speakers at 2026 graduations
- ▪Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed by students at the University of Arizona in May 2026 when he spoke about the rise of AI
Alternative People's Commencement ceremony
- ▪Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in March 2025 for his participation in a 2024 Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University
- ▪A featured speaker at the alternative event was Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist fighting deportation by the Trump administration
- ▪Students who walked out attended an alternative "People's Commencement" organized by the Stanford chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine
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