diff --git a/cluster/gce/util.sh b/cluster/gce/util.sh
index 311d7f1a0bc..2d96fffcaa7 100755
--- a/cluster/gce/util.sh
+++ b/cluster/gce/util.sh
@@ -148,19 +148,50 @@ function detect-project() {
   fi
 }
 
+# Use gsutil to get the md5 hash for a particular tar
+function gsutil_get_tar_md5() {
+  # location_tar could be local or in the cloud
+  # local tar_location example ./_output/release-tars/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
+  # cloud tar_location example gs://kubernetes-staging-PROJECT/kubernetes-devel/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
+  local -r tar_location=$1
+  #parse the output and return the md5 hash
+  #the sed command at the end removes whitespace
+  local -r tar_md5=$(gsutil hash -h -m ${tar_location} 2>/dev/null | grep "Hash (md5):" | awk -F ':' '{print $2}' | sed 's/^[[:space:]]*//g')
+  echo "${tar_md5}"
+}
+
 # Copy a release tar and its accompanying hash.
 function copy-to-staging() {
   local -r staging_path=$1
   local -r gs_url=$2
   local -r tar=$3
   local -r hash=$4
+  local -r basename_tar=$(basename ${tar})
+
+  #check whether this tar alread exists and has the same hash
+  #if it matches, then don't bother uploading it again
+
+  #remote_tar_md5 checks the remote location for the existing tarball and its md5
+  #staging_path example gs://kubernetes-staging-PROJECT/kubernetes-devel
+  #basename_tar example kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
+  local -r remote_tar_md5=$(gsutil_get_tar_md5 "${staging_path}/${basename_tar}")
+  if [[ -n ${remote_tar_md5} ]]; then
+    #local_tar_md5 checks the remote location for the existing tarball and its md5 hash
+    #tar example ./_output/release-tars/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
+    local -r local_tar_md5=$(gsutil_get_tar_md5 "${tar}")
+    if [[ "${remote_tar_md5}" == "${local_tar_md5}" ]]; then
+      echo "+++ ${basename_tar} uploaded earlier, cloud and local file md5 match (md5 = ${local_tar_md5})"
+      return 0
+    fi
+  fi
 
   echo "${hash}" > "${tar}.sha1"
   gsutil -m -q -h "Cache-Control:private, max-age=0" cp "${tar}" "${tar}.sha1" "${staging_path}"
   gsutil -m acl ch -g all:R "${gs_url}" "${gs_url}.sha1" >/dev/null 2>&1
-  echo "+++ $(basename ${tar}) uploaded (sha1 = ${hash})"
+  echo "+++ ${basename_tar} uploaded (sha1 = ${hash})"
 }
 
+
 # Given the cluster zone, return the list of regional GCS release
 # bucket suffixes for the release in preference order. GCS doesn't
 # give us an API for this, so we hardcode it.