Google Cloud Next 2023, a conference this week in San Francisco, features plenty of sustainability and generative AI news for technology partners, software companies and consulting businesses.
Google Cloud, led since 2019 by CEO Thomas Kurian (pictured, top of page), finally achieved profitability in Q1 of 2023. Fast forward to this week's conference. Among the key developments to watch: Partnerships with SAP, Deloitte, and Hitachi Energy could help end customers with their various sustainability data management and energy management strategies.
Check this blog regularly for ongoing updates from conference. The news so far includes...
6. Google AI and Sustainability: Amid concerns that AI applications may consume substantial energy, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian sees the situation differently. In an interview with Diginomica, Kurian said: "One of the reasons that we talk about performance improvement and optimization is that you need to spend a lot less compute time, and therefore a lot less energy watts, in order to train a model. When we say we can run a model training two times faster and better than other companies in the industry, it means you need half the amount of energy to train our model."
5. Software Partnership. New SAP solutions -- leveraging SAP Datasphere and Google Vertex AI -- will "help customers to create bespoke sustainability reports, automate AI-powered sustainability alerts throughout the supply chain, and enhance decision-making with deeper analyses on environmental impact and financial benefits," SAP asserted. The solutions, available "soon" on Google Cloud, will also integrate with the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution.
4. Sustainability APIs: Google unveiled a suite of sustainability APIs to provide developers with real-time solar potential, air quality and pollen level information, Engaget reported.
3. IT Consulting Partnership: A few days before the event, Deloitte and Google Cloud partnered to offer generative AI and geospatial data applications designed to help customers address sustainability, climate risks and net-zero carbon emission strategies.
2. Energy Management Partnership: Also a few days before the conference, Hitachi Energy and Google Cloud partnered to develop multiple cloud software products and services to "help customers accelerate the global energy transition toward green and renewable sources."
1. Got Google Cloud Next 23 Sustainability News to Share?: If so, please send me the details (Joe@MentoreVentures.com).
Google Sustainability and Net-Zero Company Strategy
Within and across its own business, Google is striving to achieve net zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030. At the same time, Google Cloud's goal is to run on carbon-free energy, 24/7, across all data centers by 2030. The effort includes cloud-centric partnerships.
Of course, Google Cloud rivals such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure have their own sustainability strategies that extend to customers and partners.
Blog originally published August 30, 2023. Updated multiple times thereafter.
