Cloud Wars CEO of the Year Is Google Cloud's Thomas Kurian | Cloud Wars Live

Google Cloud's Innovation and Growth


The Big Themes:


Google Cloud's record growth and market positioning: In 2024,
Google Cloud experienced five consecutive quarters of
accelerating growth, including a remarkable 35% growth in Q3, up
from 29% in Q2. Kurian attributes this success to the company’s
ability to listen to customers, innovate with products that meet
their evolving needs, and strategically invest in a strong
go-to-market organization.

AI cost reduction and efficiency: Kurian comments on Google
Cloud's efforts to significantly reduce the cost of AI models.
Through improved software stack capabilities and optimizations,
Google has decreased the cost of AI by more than 10x in just six
months. Reducing latency, improving response accuracy, and
utilizing distillation (e.g., making models run on smaller
devices like phones) have contributed to lowering operational
costs while increasing model efficiency. This approach has
resulted in a 15-17x growth in model usage in just five months.

The evolving role of cloud in business
transformation: Kurian notes a fundamental shift
in how businesses view cloud computing. Initially seen as a way
to reduce costs, cloud is now seen as a tool for driving business
transformation. AI, analytics, and security capabilities are
helping organizations speed up decision-making, optimize
logistics, and gain competitive advantages. Kurian believes that
the next wave of cloud adoption will focus more on enabling new
business models, products, and markets rather than just reducing
IT costs.



The Big Quote: “We tend to look ahead by listening to customers
and understanding their needs, and create in a disciplined way,
new product offerings. If you look a the last five years, we've
introduced enough steady cadence. First, we started with
infrastructure, then we added databases to it. We used our
strength with BigQuery to build out an analytics portfolio. We
were one of the earliest to say . . . we should not only provide
[customers] a secure cloud, but we should also build a security
product portfolio. Every one of those has driven diversification
of our revenue stream."


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