On Tuesday , Google vice Chief Executive of public policy Karan Bhatia tell apart members of the Senate Judiciary that the company ’s Project Dragonfly — a hunt engine for the Formosan market that was wide reported to involvehuge yielding to state censorsandprotested by its own stave — has been “ terminated ” and employee work out on it have been reassigned , per BuzzFeed News .

Responding to interrogation from Republican Senator Josh Hawley , Bhatia enunciate that “ We have give the axe Project Dragonfly . ” That ’s the first time it has used such a concrete condition to key out the fate of the undertaking , BuzzFeed take down . In reply to a request from comment from Gizmodo aswell as other outlet , Google target to statements it issued in March 2019 :

“ As we ’ve said for many months , we have no plans to set in motion hunt in China and there is no workplace being undertake on such a project . squad members have moved to fresh projects . ”

The Google headquarters in Beijing in 2010.

The Google headquarters in Beijing in 2010.Photo: Ng Han Guan (AP)

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1151245710056132608

Google take back many of its service from China in 2010 amid fear ofsurveillance and censorshipby the country ’s authoritarian government , butin the past few yearshas been reported to be eyeing a comeback as it watched competitors take over its gargantuan market place . It has continued tomaintain faculty thereworking in hardware and sale .

As late as December 2018 , Google was wishy - washed-out about the state of Project Dragonfly , with CEO Sundar Pichaitelling the House Judiciary Committeethat the company had no plans to launch in China “ right now . ” As late as March 2019 , some Google employees suspected work was continuing in undercover , grant to the Independent . But in world-wide the torrent of critique channelize at Google over Dragonfly has demonstrate no signboard of ceasing and came at the same time itdecided not to renewits Project Maven drone - imaging contract bridge with the Pentagon ( Google is stillpaying a political price in D.C.on all submit China - refer ) .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

According to Bloomberg , Senator Mark Warner also said on Tuesday that Pichai had told him that Google was backing off from its Chinese ambitions . Warner was light on specific , though Bloomberg remark that Google signed a deal to “ fussy - license technology and cerebral property ” with Taiwanese tech giant Tencent Holdings in January 2018 and was reportedly in negotiation tooffer cloud servicesin China after that year .

“ I do think there ’s some explaining that Google needs to make , ” Warner tell Bloomberg Technology . “ I ’ve met with the Google CEO . He said they are second out of some of those partnership , and they ’re unforced to operate with the U.S. government . ”

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William Duplessie

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