\n<\/p>\n
The $100 billion<\/a> partnership between Nvidia and OpenAI, announced Monday, represents \u2013 for now \u2013 the latest mega-deal reshaping the AI infrastructure landscape. The agreement involves non-voting shares tied to massive chip purchases and enough computing power for more than 5 million U.S. households, deepening the relationship between two of AI\u2019s most powerful players.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Google Cloud is placing a different bet entirely. While the industry\u2019s biggest players cement ever-tighter partnerships, Google is hellbent on capturing the next generation of AI companies before they become too big to court.<\/p>\n Francis deSouza, its COO, has seen the AI revolution from multiple vantage points. As the former CEO of genomics giant Illumina, he watched machine learning transform drug discovery. As co-founder of a two-year-old AI alignment startup, Synth Labs, he has grappled with the safety challenges of increasingly powerful models. Now, having joined the C-suite at Google Cloud in January, he\u2019s orchestrating a massive wager on AI\u2019s second wave.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a story deSouza likes to tell in numbers. In a conversation with this editor earlier this week<\/a>, he noted several times that nine out of the top 10 AI labs use Google\u2019s infrastructure. He also said that nearly all generative AI unicorns run on Google Cloud, that 60% of all gen AI startups worldwide have chosen Google as their cloud provider, and that the company has lined up $58 billion in new revenue commitments over the next two years, which represents more than double its current annual run rate.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is resetting the cloud market, and Google Cloud is leading the way, especially with startups,\u201d he said in a soft-spoken tone, his understated delivery masking an ambitious strategy to home in on upstarts while the biggest players are busy striking lucrative but non-exclusive partnerships.<\/p>\n The Nvidia-OpenAI deal exemplifies the scale of consolidation sweeping AI infrastructure. Microsoft\u2019s original $1 billion OpenAI investment has grown to nearly $14 billion, fundamentally reshaping the cloud market. Amazon followed with $8 billion in Anthropic investments,\u00a0securing deep hardware customizations that essentially tailor AI training to work better with Amazon\u2019s infrastructure. Oracle has emerged as a surprise winner, too, landing a $30 billion<\/a> cloud deal with OpenAI and then securing a jaw-dropping $300 billion<\/a> five-year commitment starting in 2027.<\/p>\n Even Meta, despite building its own infrastructure, signed a $10 billion deal<\/a> with Google Cloud while planning $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure spending through 2028. The Trump administration\u2019s $500 billion \u201cStargate\u201d project, involving SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle, adds another layer to these interlocking partnerships.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> These gigantic deals might seem threatening for Google, given the partnerships that companies like OpenAI and Nvidia appear to be cementing elsewhere. In fact, it looks a lot like Google is being cut out of some frenzied dealmaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the corporate behemoth isn\u2019t exactly sitting on its hands. Instead, Google Cloud is signing smaller companies like Loveable and Windsurf \u2014 what deSouza calls the \u201cnext generation of companies coming up\u201d\u2013 as \u201cprimary computing partners\u201d without major upfront investments.<\/p>\n The approach reflects both opportunity and necessity. In a market where companies can go \u201cfrom being a startup to being a multi-billion dollar company in a very short period of time,\u201d as deSouza puts it, capturing future unicorns before they mature could prove more valuable than fighting over today\u2019s giants.<\/p>\n The strategy extends beyond simple customer acquisition. Google offers AI startups $350,000 in cloud credits, access to its technical teams, and go-to-market support through its marketplace. Google Cloud also provides what deSouza describes as a \u201cno compromise\u201d AI stack \u2013 from chips to models to applications \u2013 with an \u201copen ethos\u201d that gives customers choice at every layer.<\/p>\n \u201cCompanies love the fact that they can get access to our AI stack, they can get access to our teams to understand where our technologies are going,\u201d deSouza said during our interview. \u201cThey also love that they\u2019re getting access to enterprise grade Google class infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n This infrastructure advantage became more apparent this month when reporting revealed Google\u2019s behind-the-scenes maneuvering to expand its custom AI chip business. According to The Information<\/a>, Google has struck deals to place its tensor processing units (TPUs) in other cloud providers\u2019 data centers for the first time, including an agreement with London-based Fluidstack that includes up to $3.2 billion in financial backing for a New York facility.<\/p>\n Competing directly with AI companies while simultaneously providing them infrastructure requires finesse. Google Cloud provides TPU chips to OpenAI and hosts Anthropic\u2019s Claude model through its Vertex AI platform, even as its own Gemini models compete head-to-head with both. (Google Cloud\u2019s parent company, Alphabet, also owns a 14% stake in Anthropic, per New York Times court documents obtained earlier this year, though when asked directly about Google\u2019s financial relationship with Anthropic, deSouza calls the relationship a \u201cmulti-layered partnership\u201d then quickly redirected to Google Cloud\u2019s \u201cmodel garden\u201d \u2013 noting that customers can access various foundation models.)<\/p>\n But if Google is trying to be Switzerland while advancing its own agenda, it has had plenty of practice. The approach has roots in Google\u2019s open-source contributions, from Kubernetes to the foundational \u201cAttention is All You Need\u201d paper that enabled the transformer architecture underlying most modern AI. More recently, Google published an open-source protocol called Agent-to-Agent (A2A) for inter-agent communication in an attempt to demonstrate its continued commitment to openness even in competitive areas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have made the explicit choice over the years to be open at every layer of the stack, and we know that this means companies can absolutely take our technology and use it to build a competitor at the next layer,\u201d deSouza acknowledged. \u201cThat\u2019s been happening for decades. That\u2019s something we are okay with.\u201d<\/p>\n Google Cloud\u2019s courtship of startups comes at a particularly interesting moment. Just this month, federal judge Amit Mehta delivered a nuanced ruling in the government\u2019s five-year-old search monopoly case, attempting to curb Google\u2019s dominance without hampering its AI ambitions.<\/p>\n While Google avoided the Justice Department\u2019s most severe proposed penalties, including the forced divestment of its Chrome browser, the ruling underscored regulatory concerns about the company leveraging its search monopoly to dominate AI. Critics are worried, understandably, that Google\u2019s vast trove of search data provides an unfair advantage in developing AI systems, and that the company could deploy the same monopolistic tactics that secured its search dominance.<\/p>\n In conversation, deSouza is focused on far more positive outcomes. For example, he says, \u201cI think we have an opportunity to fundamentally understand some of the major diseases that today we just don\u2019t have a good understanding of,\u201d deSouza said, outlining a vision where Google Cloud helps power research into Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s, and climate technologies. \u201cWe want to work very hard to make sure that we are pioneering the technologies that will enable that work.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics may not easily be assuaged. By positioning itself as an open platform that empowers rather than controls the next generation of AI companies, Google Cloud may be showing regulators that it fosters competition rather than stifles it, all while forging relationships with startups that might help Google\u2019s case if regulators ramp up pressure.<\/p>\n For our full conversation with deSouza, check out this week\u2019s StrictlyVC Download<\/a> podcast; a new episode comes out every Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n