Stanford: Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced a protest at the Stanford University in California, with some of the students walking out even as he took the stage at the institute’s commencement ceremony.
He was met with the demonstration from students protesting Google’s contract with the Israeli government, moments after Pichai opened the university’s 2026 commencement address.
Though he did not mention AI in his keynote address – other tech leaders have drawn boos for mentioning the topic in their speeches – the Alphabet and Google CEO still faced protests from a section of the student body over Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, as reported by Hindustan Times.
More than 100 students left their seats at Stanford Stadium while chanting, “Free, free Palestine”, it was reported.
The protest centred on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing and AI contract awarded to Google and Amazon by the Israeli government. Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine had announced the walkout weeks in advance, arguing that the project supports Israeli government operations amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
In his address, Pichai told students to “choose optimism” at the graduation ceremony. “It’s easy to look at the news of the day and think that we’re living in uniquely challenging times. For me, it’s helpful to remember that each generation has faced hardship in their own way. We don’t get to choose the world we graduate into, but we do get to choose how we frame our circumstances,” he said.
The Stanford master’s degree holder also spoke about his time at the university and having to choose corporate over academia.
As Pichai walked out from Stanford Stadium, a BBC journalist approached him and asked whether he had any reaction to the protestors. He refused to answer the question.
“Mr Pichai, any reaction to the protestors today,” the journalist was heard asking the Google CEO, who turned away and ignored the question.
