Lionel Sujay Vailshery
Research expert covering cloud computing and emerging tech industries
Google Cloud - statistics & facts
A little late to the race Google Cloud, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), formerly known as App Engine, is a cloud computing services suite launched by Google in 2008. Which seemed more of a reaction to the rapid growth of AWS from Amazon. GCP starting off as platform as a service (PaaS), now offers infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and software as a service (SaaS) to organizations worldwide. Importantly, GCP is a service mainly for building and maintaining original applications that can subsequently be published from its hyperscale data centers. In 2023, Google Cloud generated revenues of over 33 billion U.S. dollars, which represents approximately 10 percent of Google's total revenues.
Google’s cloud resources contain over 10,000 tools and products on their cloud marketplace. Notably, GCP is strong in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the sector, leveraging these technologies for applications. For example, it is both possible to build and deploy AI models as well as take advantage of Google’s pre-trained ML APIs like vision AI or natural language API. Additionally, GCP empowers customers by being committed to an open cloud approach which relies on open source.
Nevertheless, GCP is working towards being more integrated with enterprise IT, illustrated by a rise in enterprises adopting Google Cloud. With their technological expertise, GCP already managed to attract some acclaimed customers from various industries, including Spotify, and Goldman Sachs.
Google Cloud infrastructure
Google has dedicated data centers that span a global network across more than 200 countries for the cloud computing services. Customers benefit from this global network of cloud regions when using a console or an API to spin up compute, storage, network, and security capabilities. Further, these infrastructure technologies can be used in different contexts, namely Google’s public cloud, hybrid cloud, multi cloud, and edge cloud environments.Google Cloud – AI and ML
Google Bard was introduced to the world in March 2023, just when the hype around generative AI based apps was taking off. Today rebranded as Gemini, it is trained on massive amounts of data, and beating its closest rival OpenAI in many aspects. Gemini for Google Cloud which was launched in 2024 offers AI capabilities as part of Vertex AI platform. This simplifies the development and deployment with the help of Gemini foundational model for enterprise- level developers, Google Cloud services, and applications.Google’s cloud resources contain over 10,000 tools and products on their cloud marketplace. Notably, GCP is strong in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the sector, leveraging these technologies for applications. For example, it is both possible to build and deploy AI models as well as take advantage of Google’s pre-trained ML APIs like vision AI or natural language API. Additionally, GCP empowers customers by being committed to an open cloud approach which relies on open source.
Google Cloud is among the top cloud providers
GCP’s services are comparable to those of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Together with these two competitors, GCP is considered among the major cloud providers, taking approximately ten percent market share. GCP's market share points to the fact that historically, GCP has been less aligned with enterprise customers. Further, as compared to AWS and Azure, GCP is offering fewer services, while gearing their cloud model more towards software developers.Nevertheless, GCP is working towards being more integrated with enterprise IT, illustrated by a rise in enterprises adopting Google Cloud. With their technological expertise, GCP already managed to attract some acclaimed customers from various industries, including Spotify, and Goldman Sachs.
