Previously, China issued "the State Council's Opinions on Promoting the Innovation and Development of Cloud Computing and Cultivating the New Format of Information Industry" and "Guidelines for the Construction of Integrated Standardization System of Cloud Computing", which promoted cloud computing to the height of national strategy.
Cloud service giants such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure have clearly seen the huge opportunities of cloud computing in China market in the future. Up to now, AWS has two data centers and four available areas in China. According to incomplete estimates, the annual revenue may have reached 654.38+0.5 billion yuan, equivalent to 200 million US dollars, second only to Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Microsoft Azure has three data centers in China. Although the exact revenue data is not given, Microsoft Azure has 1 10000 corporate customers and more than 1 400 cloud partners in China through its cooperation with Century Internet, and its entry into China has achieved remarkable results.
It is not the best choice for Google Cloud to turn a blind eye to the olive branch that competitors keep throwing out in the cloud computing market in China. Is Google's "calm performance" in cloud computing an illusion or is cloud computing just a "supporting role" in Google's overall strategy?
Is Google's cloud computing a supporting role?
If we want to discuss the position of cloud computing in Google's development strategy, we may need to start with Google's corporate culture. Twenty years ago, Larry Page and sergey brin founded Google in Mountain View, California. Although the two founders have different personalities, they have amazing insights on how to manage the company or in which direction Google should develop in the future: advocating technology, which makes Google have a profound engineer culture; Advocating innovation makes Google's "moon landing" culture pass down to this day; Dream of changing the great feelings of the world, so that Google's business will not change course because of short-term interests.
Therefore, these two invincible founders led Google to set foot in all the fields they could set foot in. As long as there is innovation, as long as they think it is good for the future, Google will do it. This led to Google's driverless cars, Google Glass, and even Youtobe acquired by Google. Therefore, when we put Google's cloud computing business in Google's entire product ecosystem, Google Cloud is slightly small.
Google's products are divided into three categories, namely "for everyone" for consumers, "for enterprises" for corporate customers and "for developers" for developers. It seems that the product map is simple, but if you add up the products in each category, the total number of Google products is as high as 1 10. However, Google's cloud computing business has not been classified into a single category. The outside world generally refers to Google Cloud Platform and Google G Suite as Google Cloud Service. In Google's annual financial report, Google Cloud is rarely mentioned, but it is classified as "other income".
It is worth considering that the annual revenue of Google's parent company Alphabet20 17 exceeds 1000 billion US dollars, and the revenue of Google Cloud only accounts for 4% (the actual proportion may be less than this). Advertising is the king of Google's revenue, accounting for about 90% of Google's total revenue in 20 17. Compared with AWS, Amazon has always claimed to be the main force of revenue, and the status of Google Cloud does have a big gap. In short, with advertising as the revenue engine, Google's board of directors didn't expect cloud computing to make them much money.
It is not appropriate to use "cloud computing is not important" to describe the strategic position of Google Cloud. Because Google CEO Sundar Pichai invited a heavyweight on 20 15, Diane Greene, founder of enterprise computing giant VMware (now acquired by Dell Technology Group), to join Google as CEO of Google Cloud. At the subsequent 20 16 Google Consumer Conference, Diane Green announced the official launch of Google Cloud, and the journey of Google Cloud began.
Under the leadership of Diane Green, Google Cloud products have covered nine aspects, including computing, storage and database, network, big data, Internet of Things, machine learning, authentication and security, management tools and developer tools. In February of this year, Google first announced the revenue of the cloud computing department. Diane Green said that Google Cloud's quarterly revenue in 20 17 has reached 10 billion US dollars. According to this calculation, Google Cloud's annual revenue reaches 4 billion US dollars, which is the largest in China after the annual revenue of the international giant Amazon AWS 20 1717.5 billion US dollars.
Earlier, Dell Green also revealed in his speech that Larry Page of Google's board of directors and other senior executives were excited about the achievements of Google Cloud 20 17 and were preparing for the acquisition of cloud computing-related enterprises. From this point of view, Google's attitude towards cloud computing is generally clear: it is not going to make money by cloud computing, but it may be going to continue to throw money into it instead of running and jogging in small steps.
2016165438+10, Li Feifei, the world's top artificial intelligence expert, joined Google as the chief scientist of Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence Machine and Equipment Learning (chief scientist, CloudAI &; ML), in which Google combines Cloud (cloud computing), AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) into a word called Cloud AI &；; It can be seen that this scientist who is deeply involved in the fields of artificial intelligence and machinery will be inextricably linked with "Google Cloud".
(The organization chart of Alphabet after reorganization is for reference only)
In 20 15, Alphabet, Google's parent company, began corporate restructuring. After the reorganization of 20 17, "Cloud" was listed as an independent department. There is no separate department for AI or ML. Perhaps it is because in the subsidiaries of Alphabet, whether it is the mysterious Google X Lab, artificial intelligence Deepmind or the driverless car project Waymo, it is inseparable from AI &；; ML, that is to say, for Google's sub-business, AI &；; As the bottom support, ML does not need to set up a separate department.
The same is true of Google Cloud. Li Feifei who studies AI&: The chief scientist that ML is good at is called "Cloud AI &；; ML ",her work will focus on putting AI &；; ML is deeply integrated into cloud computing.
Li Feifei did the same, and her first stop was China.
20 17 12, at the Google Developers Conference held in Shanghai, Li Feifei announced the official establishment of "Google ai China Center". That day, she was wearing a short-sleeved cheongsam and China Red Kan Kan. Li Feifei is the only face of china among the ten executives who hang on Google Cloud official website. This identity may be related to Google's choice of cloud AI&; The chief scientist of ML has something to do with it.
In March of 20 18, Li Feifei released a series of new Google Cloud APIs for machine learning and artificial intelligence, and acquired Kaggle, a machine learning competition platform.
After that, Google Cloud may further expand its cloud computing business in China with the help of "Google AI China Center". I hope this day won't wait too long.
Will Google compromise this time?
In 20 10, Google's search business withdrew from China, and now I still have a lingering fear. There are different opinions about the reasons for Google's withdrawal from China. One voice believes that Google unilaterally confirmed that it was attacked by hackers from China; Another voice, Google lost in the process of competing for share with China local search engine Baidu, and fled hastily; There is also a voice because Google cannot accept the "content review" requirements put forward by the China government; In addition, it was also pointed out that it was Kai-Fu Lee's departure that made Google lack a leader in China, which made it unable to localize.
In short, Google finally chose not to compromise.
However, this time, the test that Google Cloud will undergo from the China government is relatively more severe, because it involves the data problem of users in China. China's network security law stipulates data sovereignty, that is, data should be stored locally, and domestic or foreign companies must use the servers of sovereign countries when collecting and storing data involving personal information and key data.
Whether it is Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Apple icloud and other multinational giants, they all chose to comply with the requirements of the China government and cooperate with local companies in China to hand over the infrastructure to China, and Apple icloud even moved the key chain back to China. Will Google Cloud choose to compromise like its competitors? Li Can Feifei, head of Google Cloud China, leads Google Cloud home?
Larry Page, the founder of Google, once said: "A company can't be a satisfactory company if it only aims at making profits and doesn't contribute to changing the world." In the whole ecosystem of Google, "now" and "future" are two obvious dividing lines. Google's advertising business is "now", and "future" is all technologies that can make human beings better, such as artificial intelligence and driverless driving. At present, Google also classifies "cloud computing" as "the future".
The concept of "non-profit" may not make Google Cloud choose to quickly enter the China market, and its pace may be more suitable for "cultivating cloud computing" than "occupying the market".