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Google Clouds first Arm-based CPU for the data centre, a host of new compute and storage services that dramatically improve generative AI performance, a security-centric Chrome offering, and a flurry of enterprise-focused Workspace updates that take the fight to Microsoft 365.

Also, AI in everything, including Gemini and Vertex AI in data warehouse BigQuery (with fine tuning) in public preview, for "seamless preparation and analysis of multimodal data such as documents, audio and video files." (nb: Vector search came to Big Query in preview in February.)

Those were among the updates set to get serious airtime at Google Cloud NEXT in Las Vegas this week. The Stack will share more considered analysis about some of the news coming through in coming days, along with interviews with executives and customers but heres an early sample from a blockbuster set of press releases, GitHub repositories and blogs...

Unlike traditional email and productivity solutions, Gmail and Workspace were built from the very beginning on a cloud-native architecture, rooted in zero-trust principles, and augmented with AI-powered threat defenses.

So said Google pointedly in the wake of the CSRBs blistering indictment of Microsofts security, which noted pointedly that Redmond had designed its consumer MSA identity infrastructure more than 20 years ago.)

Workspace, Googles suite of collaboration and productivity applications, has approximately 10 million paying users. That makes it a minnow compared to the 300 million+ paid seats Office 365 boasted back in 2022.

It could be more of a threat to Microsoft.

A series of new features unveiled today may make it one. They include a new $10/user AI Security add-on that will let Workspace admins automatically classify and protect sensitive files and data using privacy-preserving AI models and Data Loss Prevention [DLP] controls trained for their organization a Google spokesperson told The Stack that were extending DLP controls and classification labels to Gmail in beta.

Pressed for detail, they told us that these will include:

Also coming soon: Experimental support for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) in client-side encryption [with partners] Thales and Fortanix

A new generative AI service called Google Vids baked into Google Workspace may get more headlines. Thats a video, writing, production, and editing assistant that will work in-browser and sit alongside Docs, Sheets, and Slides from June. Less of a serious competitor for Premier Pro and more a templating assistant that pieces together your first draft with suggested scenes from stock videos, images, and background music.(The Stack has clarified that users can also upload their own video, not just use stock...)

Other Workspace updates today:

Chat: Increased member capacity of up to 500,000 in Spaces for those bigger enterprise customers. Also new: GA messaging interoperability with Slack and Teams through Google-funded Mio, and various AI integrations and enhancements across Docs, Sheets etc.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang anticipates over $1 trillion in data center spending over the next four years as infrastructure is heavily upgraded for more generative AI-centric workloads. This isnt just a case of plumbing in more GPUs Google Cloud is showcasing some real innovations here.

It boasted significant enhancements at every layer of our AI Hypercomputer architecture [including] performance-optimized hardware, open software and frameworks

Top of the list and hot off the press:

Various other promises of faster, cheaper compute also abound. But its storage and caching where GCPs R&D work really shines. (Important for generative AI because it is a HUGE bottleneck for most models.)

A standout is the preview release of Hyperdisk, a block storage service optimised for AI inference/serving workloads that Google Cloud says accelerates model load times up to 12X compared to common alternatives, with read-only, multi-attach, and thin provisioning.

Hyperdisk lets uses spin up 2,500 instances to access the same volume and delivers up to 1.2 TiB/s of aggregate throughput per volume: Over 100X greater performance than Microsoft Azure Ultra SSD and Amazon EBS io2 BlockExpress in short its volumes are heavily optimised and managed network storage devices located independently from VMs, so users can detach or move Hyperdisk volumes to keep data, even after deleting VMs.

Hyperdisk performance is decoupled from size, so you can dynamically update the performance, resize your existing Hyperdisk volumes or add more Hyperdisk volumes to a VM to meet your performance and storage space requirements Google boasts, although there are some limitations

Other storage/caching updates:

Chrome Enterprise Premium is a turbocharged version ofChrome Enterprise with new....

Yes, we agree, this sounds rather good too.

More details and pricing in a standalone piece soon.

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Google Cloud NEXT 2024: The hottest news, in brief - The Stack