At Next, Google makes a smarter case for leading the generative AI era

With Google’s Cloud Next ’24 conference this past week in Las Vegas now in the books, it looks like the search giant is finally poised to leverage its longtime work in artificial intelligence and its serious technical infrastructure to provide a boost to its third-place cloud computing unit.

The Mandalay Bay conference center hosted some 30,000 people and the energy, and crowds, were apparent. But even Google executives conceded it’s still very early for generative AI in the enterprise, not just for Google for its rivals as well, so it’s not yet certain how much of a boost it will provide.

At the same time, copyright issues loom larger for AI model makers such as OpenAI, Google and Meta Platforms, as a proposed bill would force them to disclose that.

There was plenty of action this week in infrastructure as well, as TSMC got big bucks from the CHIPS Act for fabs in the U.S. The PC market (and TSMC) also bounced back thanks to AI. Intel doubled down on AI with new Gaudi 3 and other chips, and Apple’s M4 reportedly will offer serious AI capabilities.

On the cybersecurity front, CISA issued serious warnings about Microsoft and Sisense cyberattacks, and Apple flags iPhones attacks. Meanwhile, cyber consolidation continues as Wiz bought Gem Security and Zscaler acquired Airgap Networks. Cohesity and Cyera also reeled in big fundings.

You can hear more about this and other news in John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast, theCUBE Pod, out now on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive, Breaking Analysis, out this weekend.

Here’s the top news we covered this week:

Google Cloud triples down on AI

Google Cloud Next was all about AI, AI and AI, and we had all the news and analysis from our onsite team all week in Las Vegas. (Disclosure: Google sponsored theCUBE’s set on the expo floor. The following stories are all unsponsored editorial unless otherwise identified.)

First, some thoughts from my interviews and ramblings around Mandalay Bay this week:

• This event, which drew about 30,000 people, had the energy of the still larger AWS re:Invent, with streams of people everywhere around Mandalay Bay for all four days. And it was Vegas, baby — just like re:Invent every December and Microsoft’s Azure + AI Conference in September. The clear message: “We’re now too big for SF.”
• There’s an energy and enthusiasm apparent among Googlers about what they can do with AI (and what AI can do for their company) that started to counter the narrative that it lost ground to Microsoft. Maybe it did, but there’s now a spring in its step, or at least a feeling that it has the means — both the longtime AI chops in-house and the infrastructure — to lead the enterprise AI drive. “The AI era is our era,” Google Cloud Consulting lead Lee Moore told me.
• That’s less boastful than it sounds, and certainly not delusional, since Google has not only the AI expertise but the infrastructure to do even more than all the stuff it showed off at Next. All that cloud compute, networking, storage and security counts for more than just having the latest and biggest AI model — and its Gemini model, which it has infused into everything that moves inside Google, is at least competitive with the best out there. “Google Cloud has thrown the gauntlet, and I know I’m hearing that a lot of other competitors are having sleepless nights,” Sanjeev Mohan, principal at SanjMo, told theCUBE.
• Google claims to be more open, always a fraught word, but it’s at least providing choices, such as with BigQuery Omni that can run in other clouds, that ultimately might benefit Google as well. As Mohan said, “So you can query BigQuery on AWS much faster and cheaper,” he noted, calling it a “big deal.”
• Generative AI is about to change more than you think in the enterprise, and in computing and software in general. CEO Thomas Kurian talked a lot about agents, a term that doesn’t seem as common among its AI rivals, one of which obviously prefers the term copilot — and the term isn’t used lightly. Googlers I talked to say they think of AI agents that its Vertex AI Agent Builder service can help create in the more traditional human sense of acting as, well, an agent that goes and does things for you, like a travel agent can arrange multiple aspects of a trip, or as Google showed off in Kurian’s keynote, something that gets you through the annual employee benefits gauntlet more easily.
• This is where it gets really interesting for enterprise applications and software as a service. What are agents, fully fledged and specific to an industry or even slices of an industry, if not things that do what enterprise software does, but often all too clumsily? Take business intelligence. Google is definitely looking to disrupt that segment by applying gen AI to analytics to create much more granular agents that look an awful lot like applications, Gerrit Kazmaier, VP and GM of database, data analytics and Looker, told me. “That unlocks many new applications,” he said. And Richard Seroter on agents being something to orchestrate more complex tasks with AI. “Agents are really the next stage of AI,” Chief Evangelist Richard Seroter added in an interview. “We want to start templatizing these agents,” such as employee agents, customer service agent, coding agents and the like. The upshot: Traditional applications and even software as a service are about to get disrupted, and soon. Do they become the new plumbing for AI agents?
• Data, and databases, also become much more actionable than before, and in real time. “With AI there is a new actor coming,” says Kazmaier. “It’s a highly dynamic agent.”
• Surprisingly, cyber criminals aren’t really leveraging generative AI that much so far. “We haven’t seen that kind of activity yet,” Chris Corde, product manager for security operations at Google Cloud, told me. Although he views generative AI as a more effective defensive tool for now, “my guess is you will see AI used to make attackers more effective.” 
• Indeed, for all the enthusiasm by Google and its customers about the potential of AI, executives note that so far enterprises are mostly automating pretty mundane things such as finding data and getting a start on marketing campaigns and copy — in other words, not world-changing stuff yet. It’s interesting that for all the slick demos of future possibilities of AI, Google views the shorter-term opportunity in the enterprise as more promising. It marshaled some 300 customers using its AI services to prove the point, but they’re mostly just starting to employ the new AI.
• For all the talk about AI at Next, missing in action were most of Google’s AI leaders — perhaps because Google Cloud Next is more concerned with infrastructure and operations than research, but it seemed like a bit of a gap. Sachin Gupta, VP and GM of Google Cloud’s Infrastructure and Solutions Group, conceded to me that’s something that they’ll look at next time, though it’s a sure bet there will be a whole new set of priorities a year from now.

And the news:

Google Cloud enhances AI Hypercomputer cloud infrastructure with new GPUs, TPUs, optimized storage and more

Google Cloud debuts Arm-based Axion cloud CPUs

Google Cloud targets general-purpose and specialized workloads with new virtual machine families

Google unleashes powerful Gemini data tools, generative AI agent creation for developers

Google updates Workspace with generative AI-powered video Google Vids and enhanced security

Google introduces distributed cloud search and strengthens multicloud support

With its partners, Google Cloud is building a one-stop shop for generative AI development

Google’s GDC Hosted private cloud platform can now run more public sector workloads

Google enhances cybersecurity defenses with AI-driven innovations at GCP Next

CrowdStrike and Google Cloud strengthen alliance to enhance cloud security

Exclusive: Google unveils Isolator, a secure collaboration solution for healthcare data

Google Cloud showcases how major customers are innovating with its generative AI services

Google integrates its Gemini Pro large language model into Android Studio

Google updates its Gemma AI model family with variants for coding and research

Box’s strategic leap: Embracing AI to transform unstructured content management

Analysis:

The next big wave: Google Cloud’s visionary leap into an AI-driven future

Google Cloud Next highlights gen AI’s role in shaping work and society

Celebrating Kubernetes, AI breakthroughs and swag culture: Google Cloud Next day two insights

BigQuery Omni and AI tools mark Google’s bold move to dominate multicloud ecosystem

Some of the more interesting sponsored interviews (and more to come):

Enhancements for Google Distributed Cloud support enterprise AI and security needs

Elevating government security with AI: Google Public Sector’s top-secret cloud commitment

Fusing Kubernetes and AI: Google brings new AI capabilities to the cloud

Transforming customer service with AI: Enterprise evolution’s next step

Unpacking Google’s data center leap with Arm-based Axion processors

Elsewhere in AI and data

OpenAI, Google and Meta accused of skirting legal boundaries for AI training data

New bill aims to force AI firms to disclose use of copyrighted material

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spotlights AI growth, space opportunities in latest shareholder letter

Microsoft chooses London as the hub to drive its AI advancements

Fundings:

Beyond Transformers: Symbolica launches with $33M to change the AI industry with symbolic models

Oden Technologies raises $28.5M to launch AI-driven products for manufacturing

Onum raises $28M to help organizations extract their most valuable data in real time

Mode Inc. raises $8.75M to build generative AI assistant for the internet of things

AI book publishing platform Spines raises $6.5M to disrupt centuries-old industry

Sapien raises $5M to gamify data labeling for AI models

New models, services and applications:

MistralAI debuts Mixtral 8x22B, one of the most powerful open-source AI models yet

OpenAI rolls out upgraded GPT-4 Turbo model to ChatGPT’s premium tiers

Turning golf shots into insights: How IBM is driving an AI-powered Masters digital experience

Databricks delivers enhanced data analytics and intelligence for the energy sector

Georgia Tech announces first Nvidia-powered AI supercomputer for students

Starburst to release its Iceberg-based lakehouse as a managed service

UserTesting launches feedback engine to enhance product insight collection

Software AG applies generative AI to process modeling and IT asset management

New Collibra governance solution seeks to enhance data reliability in AI projects

How L’Oreal is tapping generative AI to transform its marketing

Around the enterprise, cloud and infrastructure

TSMC wins $11.6B in federal grants and loans to build third US fab

TSMC beats first-quarter sales forecast thanks to AI chip demand

Boosted by AI, global PC market bounces back after two years of declining sales

Intel challenges Nvidia with new Gaudi 3 AI chip as AMD expands processor lineup

Meta details five-nanometer MTIA chip for accelerating AI inference workloads

Report: Apple is planning to bring new AI-focused M4 chips to entire line of Macs

Intel and Altera unveil new chips and FPGAs to enhance AI at the network edge

Automattic expands messaging portfolio with $125M acquisition of Beeper

Financial operations platform FloQast raises $100M in late-stage funding to achieve unicorn status

Google releases first Android 15 beta with improved performance and edge-to-edge display by default

Google to spend $1B on enhancing subsea internet infrastructure in the Pacific

AWS pledges to help organizations with digital sovereignty and resilience

Cyber beat

Significant attacks:

CISA issues urgent directives on attacks of Microsoft and Sisense accounts

Apple warns users in 92 countries about mercenary spyware attacks

Palo Alto Networks discloses critical vulnerability in its firewall operating system

Acquisitions and fundings:

Wiz acquires cloud cybersecurity startup Gem Security for reported $350M

Zscaler acquires microsegmentation startup Airgap Networks And analysis from Zeus Kerravala: Zscaler goes east-west with the acquisition of Airgap Networks

Cohesity completes late-stage $150M funding from IBM and Nvidia, expands IBM partnership

Data security startup Cyera reels in $300M more at $1.4B valuation

Sprinto raises $20M to enhance compliance management with AI

Simbian raises $10M to automate security operations with generative AI

PVML raises $8M to secure access to sensitive data with Differential Privacy tech

New services:

DuckDuckGo launches privacy-focused subscription with VPN and identity protection

Sama launches Red Team service to enhance AI model safety and reliability

Darktrace launches ActiveAI Security Platform to enhance cyber resilience

Analysis:

LockBit struggles to maintain relevance amid rise of impersonators and new ransomware groups

SecurityANGLE: Fortinet’s strategic surge: Mastering secure networking, operations and SASE

Elsewhere around tech

Secretive robotics startup Collaborative Robotics closes on $100M round

Monad Labs raises $225M for Ethereum competitor layer-1 blockchain

Meta is facing a backlash over its cautious policy on political content

DocSend report reveals surprising uptick in first-quarter venture capital engagement

Comings and goings

Is Amazon serious about catching up in AI? Oh yes it is, and one signal is that it just added AI legend Andrew Ng to its board. In his annual letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy not surprisingly focused on AI, saying it’s the biggest thing since the cloud and maybe the internet and laying out his picks-and-shovels strategy for the market.

Early-stage enterprise software venture capital firm Sierra Ventures hired Shashank Saxena, who sold his startup VNDLY to Workday for $510 million in late 2021, as managing partner.

Wipro named Srini Pallia its new CEO and managing director to replace Thierry Delaporte, who is leaving after four years in the job.

Intelligent data platform Expereo announced Chief Revenue Officer Ben Elms will become CEO May 1, replacing Irwin Fouwels, who becomes executive chairman.

What’s next

Lots of events coming up as conference season gets into full swing this spring:

What to expect during SAS Innovate: Join theCUBE April 17-18

What to expect at Red Hat Summit: Join theCUBE May 6-8

What to expect during the RSA Conference: Join theCUBE May 6-9

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE