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Google Cloud Showcases New AI Innovations and Partnering Startups
At its annual Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas, technology giant Google unveiled a suite of new artificial intelligence advancements and highlighted collaborations with leading AI startups leveraging its cloud platform. Key announcements included Ironwood, Google’s next-generation AI processing chip, and Gemini 2.5 Flash, the latest iteration of its AI model.
Leading AI Startups Choose Google Cloud
Google also announced partnerships with a diverse array of prominent AI-focused startups that have committed to utilizing Google Cloud services. This roster includes Safe Superintelligence (SSI), founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, among other highly anticipated ventures in the artificial intelligence space.
Spotlight on Key Startup Collaborations
Here is a closer look at some of the featured AI startups partnering with Google Cloud:
- Anysphere (Cursor): Developer of Cursor, a popular AI-powered code editor, Anysphere reportedly utilizes Anthropic’s Claude models via Google Cloud. Cursor, a rival to Microsoft’s GitHub CoPilot, was recently valued at $10 billion.
- Hebbia: Specializing in AI-driven document search and question answering, Hebbia has gained traction in the legal sector. The company, backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures, employs Google’s Gemini models.
- Magic: Focused on developing advanced AI models for code automation and research, Magic’s association with Google Cloud is reinforced by investment from Alphabet’s CapitalG and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in its recent $320 million funding round. Magic leverages Google Cloud GPUs.
- Physical Intelligence: Pioneering foundational software for robotics, Physical Intelligence boasts a notable founder team and secured $400 million in funding at a $2 billion pre-money valuation. The company, supported by Sequoia and Jeff Bezos, includes former Google DeepMind researchers among its founders.
- Photoroom: A Paris-based AI startup specializing in AI photo editing, Photoroom utilizes Google Cloud’s Veo 2 video generation model and Imagen 3 text-to-image model.
- Synthesia: Developing realistic AI avatars, Synthesia employs various Google AI models. The company raised $180 million in a funding round led by NEA, with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures).
Google Cloud’s Growing AI Ecosystem
These partnerships underscore Google Cloud’s efforts to build a robust ecosystem of AI startups, positioning itself as a strong contender against Microsoft Azure and AWS in the competitive market for AI cloud workloads.
Expanding VC Partnerships to Support AI Innovation
Google Cloud is expanding its support for AI ventures by adding Lightspeed to its VC partner program, joining Sequoia and Y Combinator. Portfolio companies from these investors gain access to Google’s AI chips and models, with Lightspeed’s AI portfolio companies eligible for $150,000 in cloud credits, signaling Google’s strategy to attract promising AI startups to its platform.
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Additional AI Startups Showcased by Google Cloud
Below are further AI startups highlighted by Google this week:
- Augment Code — AI software coding agent
- Autoscience — scientific research AI agents
- Big Sur AI — personalized recommendations for e-commerce
- Captions — talking video creator and video editor
- Eon.io — autonomous enterprise backup and recovery
- fal.is — text to image, and image to video
- Spot AI — AI for security cameras
- Story — blockchain for storing and licensing intellectual property
- StudyHall AI — coaches students on reading, writing, and exam prep
- Ubie — Japanese healthcare symptom analyzer
- Udio — music creation
- Ufonia — agent for clinical healthcare consultations with patients
- Wagestream — financial well-being platform built by charities
- Wondercraft — GenAI realistic audio content