The biggest announcements from Google Cloud Next 25
Google Cloud Next '25 showcased powerful new hardware like Ironwood TPUs, advanced models across all modalities, a comprehensive multi-agent ecosystem, and purpose-built AI agents delivering tangible business results across customer service, creative work, data analysis, coding, and security.
Google Cloud Next Conference Summary
Google took the stage this Wednesday at its annual Google Cloud Next conference. The company focused on a series of announcements, primarily about its advances in AI infrastructure and generative AI research and development. On the hardware front, the introduction of Google's next-generation custom AI chip, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) Ironwood, was a highlight of the event. This new chip is set to be available later this year.
The announcements related to generative AI were divided into two main categories. The first category focused on the foundation models for various applications, including text and media generation and weather forecasting. One of the significant announcements in this category was the upcoming availability of Gemini 2.5 Flash in Vertex AI. This model is optimized for affordability and speed, with the ability to adjust reasoning based on prompt complexity.
The second category revolved around Google Cloud's new productivity-enhancing features, such as additions to Google Workspace and the introduction of AI agents and tools like the Agent Development Kit (ADK) and Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to enable multi-agent workflows.
Enterprise AI Adoption Statistics
The statistics presented at the conference highlighted rapid enterprise AI adoption. Over 4 million developers are actively using Gemini, while Vertex AI usage has increased significantly over the past year. This surge is attributed to the adoption of Gemini, Imagen, and Veo. Additionally, Google Workspace now sees over two billion AI assists monthly for business users, improving productivity in enterprise settings.
Hardware Advancements
The star hardware announcement at the event was the introduction of Ironwood, Google's seventh-generation TPU. This new chip represents a significant advancement, offering a 10x improvement from the previous high-performance TPU. Google Cloud customers will have access to two configurations based on their workload demands, with the higher configuration delivering an impressive 42.5 exaflops of compute power.
Furthermore, Ironwood will be added to Google Cloud's hardware options, which also include A4 and A4X VMs powered by NVIDIA's B200 and GB200 Blackwell GPUs. Google Cloud is set to be among the first to offer NVIDIA's next-generation Vera Rubin GPUs, promising up to 15 exaflops of inference performance per rack.
Model Advancements
Google Cloud stands out as the only provider offering models across all modalities, including text, images, video, audio, and music generation. The Vertex AI Model Garden features over 200 models from Google, third-party providers, and open-source models. New capabilities and tools have been introduced to enhance the overall AI ecosystem.
Multi-Agent Systems and Business Results
Google is placing a significant focus on multi-agent systems, aiming to democratize AI and enhance productivity across various industries. The company highlighted how AI agents are delivering tangible business results in categories such as customer service, creative work, data analysis, coding, and security. Google also emphasized its commitment to openness and interoperability, allowing customers to leverage existing IT environments and access a wide range of services.
