April 9-11, 2025, marked Google’s biggest cloud conference in company history. Google Cloud Next brought 30,000 attendees to Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, proving that despite AWS’s dominance and Microsoft Azure’s enterprise reach, Google has something compelling to offer.
The conference wasn’t subtle about its focus. AI dominated the agenda, the keynotes, and the expo floor. Google wants to position itself as the platform where enterprises build intelligent applications, and it used three days in Las Vegas to make that case.
The Numbers Behind the Event
Over 700 sessions covered everything from infrastructure basics to cutting-edge AI implementations. More than 10 keynotes and spotlights featured Google executives, customer case studies, and product announcements. The expo floor hosted 350-plus sponsoring partners demonstrating solutions built on Google Cloud.
Registration opened months earlier with early bird pricing at $999, available through February 14 or until tickets sold out. Google knew demand would be high and priced accordingly. By comparison, AWS re:Invent charges similar rates, and both conferences deliver enough value to justify the cost.
The conference actually started the afternoon of April 8 with select programming, giving attendees an extra half-day to settle in and start networking before the main event kicked off.
AI Takes Center Stage
The opening keynote showcased cutting-edge product innovations across Google’s AI-optimized platform. Five demos demonstrated practical applications rather than theoretical possibilities. The 10-minute recap video later posted online captured the highlights for people who couldn’t attend.
The developer keynote focused specifically on how AI is revolutionizing development workflows. Seven demos covered everything from building with Gemini to creating multi-agent systems. Google wants developers to see AI as a productivity multiplier, not a threat to their jobs.
That framing matters. Many developers feel anxious about AI potentially automating their work. Google positioned its tools as assistants that handle tedious tasks while humans focus on creative problem-solving and architectural decisions.
AlphaFold 3 Goes Commercial
Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs announced AlphaFold 3 High-Throughput Solution, available for non-commercial use and deployable via Google Cloud Cluster Toolkit. The system enables batch processing of up to tens of thousands of protein sequences while minimizing costs through autoscaling infrastructure.
Drug discovery requires understanding how proteins fold and interact. Traditional methods take years and cost millions. AlphaFold accelerates this process dramatically, potentially saving lives and reducing pharmaceutical development costs.
The non-commercial restriction matters. Google wants researchers using the system to advance science, not pharmaceutical companies building proprietary competitive advantages without compensating Google. Commercial licensing will likely follow once Google figures out appropriate pricing.
WeatherNext AI Models Launch
Google DeepMind and Google Research introduced WeatherNext models for fast, accurate weather forecasting. The models are now available in Vertex AI Model Garden, letting organizations customize and deploy them for research and industry applications.
Weather forecasting impacts agriculture, logistics, insurance, emergency management, and countless other industries. Better predictions mean better decisions. Google is betting that organizations will pay for improved accuracy beyond what free government weather services provide.
Ironwood: The 7th Generation TPU
Google announced Ironwood, its seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit, designed to power thinking and inferential AI models at scale. The chip will become available later in 2025, giving developers time to prepare applications that take advantage of its capabilities.
TPUs represent Google’s answer to Nvidia’s GPU dominance. By designing custom silicon optimized for AI workloads, Google achieves better performance per dollar for specific use cases. The strategy works for Google’s own services, and the company wants cloud customers benefiting from the same advantages.
The “AI Hypercomputer stack” delivers more intelligence per dollar through hardware innovation, software optimization, and tight integration across the system. Google frames this as economic advantage rather than just technical capability. Cloud costs matter to enterprises running large-scale AI workloads.
Real Customer Stories That Matter
Google showcased hundreds of customers building on Google Cloud. These weren’t token name-drops. The conference featured detailed case studies explaining what worked, what didn’t, and what lessons emerged.
The Government of Singapore uses Google Cloud Web Risk to protect residents online. Cybersecurity at national scale requires reliable infrastructure and advanced threat detection. Singapore chose Google after evaluating alternatives.
Spotify uses BigQuery to harness enormous data volumes delivering personalized experiences to over 675 million users worldwide. The company processes billions of data points daily to understand listening habits and recommend content. BigQuery handles that scale efficiently.
Intuit uses Google Cloud’s Document AI and Gemini models to simplify tax preparation for millions of TurboTax consumers. The system saves time and reduces errors by extracting information from documents automatically rather than requiring manual data entry.
United Wholesale Mortgage uses gen AI and data analytics to improve the mortgage process for 50,000 mortgage brokers and their clients. The focus on speed and efficiency matters in an industry where delays cost deals and frustrate customers.
The Wizard of Oz at The Sphere
One announcement caught people off guard. The Sphere, Las Vegas’s massive domed screen venue, is presenting “The Wizard of Oz” as an immersive experience reconceptualizing the 1939 film classic through AI.
The collaboration between Sphere Entertainment, Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, Hollywood production company Magnopus, and five others demonstrates AI’s creative applications. The 160,000-square-foot screen creates opportunities for storytelling that wouldn’t work on traditional displays.
Google wants people associating its AI technology with cultural moments and creative excellence, not just business efficiency. The Sphere project serves that brand-building purpose while showcasing technical capabilities.
Security Gets Serious Attention
Google Cloud Next 2025 included 40-plus security breakout sessions, immersive security demonstrations, and access to security experts from Google and Mandiant. Security wasn’t an afterthought. It received major emphasis throughout the conference.
The new Security Experience at the expo let attendees learn how to protect businesses using the same insights, expertise, and cybersecurity specialists Google uses to keep billions of users and millions of websites safe.
Security matters increasingly as companies move critical workloads to the cloud. A single breach can cost millions in direct damages and destroy reputations. Google positions its security infrastructure as a competitive advantage worth paying for.
Developer Experience Gets an Upgrade
Google launched the Agent Development Kit for TypeScript, providing a code-first approach to building AI agents. Developers want tools that integrate smoothly with existing workflows rather than requiring entirely new approaches.
The hackathons added competitive energy to the conference. The Google Cloud x MLB Hackathon offered winners tickets to Next 2025 and the 2025 MLB All-Star Game. At the conference itself, Formula E mini-hacks challenged participants to apply AI to real-world racing data.
Kaggle competitions let data scientists showcase skills to a global audience while solving problems Google cares about. The gamification approach works because developers like solving interesting challenges and appreciate recognition for excellence.
Interactive Learning Replaces Passive Listening
Next 2025 emphasized hands-on experiences over lecture-style sessions. Interactive demos and workshops covered app development, AI, data, security, and more. Attendees participated in labs, small-group discussions, and product experiments with Vertex AI, Firebase, BigQuery, GKE, and other Google Cloud services.
The format change reflects feedback that developers learn better by doing than by listening. Watching someone demo a product doesn’t compare to actually using it and encountering real implementation challenges.
Google provided opportunities throughout the show floor for architects and engineers to discuss technical challenges with Googlers and partners eager to assist. The informal consulting helps attendees solve actual problems rather than just collecting marketing materials.
SaaS Runtime Simplifies Service Management
Google announced SaaS Runtime, a service lifecycle management solution letting companies model, deploy, and operate SaaS services at scale. The platform quickly infuses services with AI capabilities, taking SaaS offerings to new levels.
Managing SaaS infrastructure at scale presents operational challenges that distract from building features customers want. SaaS Runtime automates the tedious parts so teams can focus on differentiation.
Cloud Run Gets GPU Support
Cloud Run received several updates including general availability of GPU support, public preview of high availability apps via multi-region deployment, and private preview of worker pools for Kafka consumers handling pull-based workloads.
GPU support matters because AI workloads increasingly require acceleration beyond CPUs. Cloud Run’s serverless model combined with GPU access gives developers powerful infrastructure without operational overhead.
The Partner Ecosystem Showed Up
Over 350 partners exhibited at Next 2025, demonstrating solutions built on Google Cloud. NTT DATA, a Velocity sponsor and Google Cloud Premier Partner, showcased expertise in generative AI, cloud-native modernization, data and analytics, and industry cloud platforms.
The partner ecosystem proves Google Cloud’s maturity. Enterprises don’t just evaluate Google’s own services. They evaluate the availability of consultants, integrators, and tool vendors that can help with implementation.
Key Takeaways
Google Cloud Next 2025 revealed several clear messages. First, Google is betting everything on AI as the platform differentiator. The company believes its AI capabilities give it competitive advantage over AWS and Azure.
Second, developer experience matters as much as raw capabilities. Google invests in tools, documentation, and support that make building on its platform enjoyable rather than frustrating.
Third, security isn’t optional anymore. Google positions its infrastructure and expertise as risk mitigation worth paying for.
Fourth, the customer success stories are real and substantial. Major enterprises run mission-critical workloads on Google Cloud, and they’re willing to share results.
Fifth, Google understands the importance of marketing and brand building. The Sphere collaboration and creative demos show a company thinking beyond pure technical merit.
The Competition Heats Up
Google faces tough competition from AWS and Azure, both with larger market share and deeper enterprise relationships. The cloud wars won’t end soon, and Google needs to fight for every customer.
Next 2025’s size and energy demonstrate Google isn’t giving up. The company keeps investing in infrastructure, developing new services, and winning customers. Whether that’s enough to close the gap with AWS remains to be seen.
Looking Forward
Google Cloud Next 2026 will take place April 22-24, 2026, back in Las Vegas. Companies are already planning announcements and preparing demos.
The location works for Google. Mandalay Bay provides sufficient space, Las Vegas offers hospitality infrastructure, and the airport handles international traffic efficiently. The city’s entertainment options don’t hurt either.
Google proved it can run a massive conference that delivers value to attendees. Whether that translates to cloud market share gains depends on execution throughout 2025 and beyond. Las Vegas provided the stage. Now Google needs to deliver on the promises made there.
Links:
– Google Cloud Next Official Site: cloud.withgoogle.com
– Registration and Security Focus: cloud.google.com
– Google Cloud Next 2025 Wrap-Up: cloud.google.com
– Developer Content Announcement: developers.googleblog.com
– Registration Opening: cloud.google.com
