The US Air Force has teamed up with Google Public Sector and General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) to deploy the Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped offering.

Google Distributed Cloud is Google's on-premises cloud offering, wherein customers deploy the cloud provider's hardware in their own data centers or at the Edge.

An air-gapped version of GDC - which is completely isolated from the wider Internet - was launched in July 2024, running Google's cloud infrastructure stack, including Kubernetes clusters, data security services, and Vertex AI platform.

At the time of launch, Google noted that the offering had security clearance for most US military and Defense Department use cases and has Defense Department Impact Level 5 accreditation for its security features, which include data encryption, data isolation, firewalls, and a secure boot.

It also comes in a "ruggedized" version, which has been selected by the Air Force.

The ruggedized GDC air-gapped appliance was tested this July in Guam during the Mobility Guardian 2025 event. According to a blog post from Google, the test "successfully demonstrated its ability to generate critical intelligence and AI-powered insights in a disconnected environment – which is fundamental to enhancing resilience and accelerating decision-making for the Air Force."

During the trial, GDC was used to provide a secure and disconnected IL2 collaboration platform, and Airmen used Google's generative AI models for real-time transcription, optical character recognition, translation, and summarization.

The GDC appliance also integrated with GDIT's Luna AI solution for processing air defense data at the Edge, which gave low-latency flight path tracking.

Additionally, the Air Force ingested hundreds of pages of technical manuals to create a generative AI resource for instant troubleshooting, and computer vision capabilities analyzed visual data from the field to automatically identify and extract critical elements – such as maintenance abnormalities, equipment status, or location coordinates.

According to the blog post, GDC is now ready to be used for "deeper integrations with mission applications and connectivity with Google’s Global Network (GGN) to create a secure high-performance link from the Edge back to the cloud."

Google has won several defense contracts in recent months. In the US, the company was awarded a contract valued at up to $200 million with the Department of Defense's Chief Digital and Intelligence Office (CDA) in July, and earlier this month, the US Defense Logistics Agency signed a $48m contract with Google for its cloud services.

In June, the IT service provider for the German armed forces, BWI GmbH, signed an agreement with Google Cloud to use its air-gapped GDC offering.

In the UK, the Ministry of Defence awarded Google Cloud a £400 million ($542.12m) contract in September 2025, which will see Google develop a sovereign cloud using Google Distributed Cloud Air-Gapped.