Google Cloud presents innovations at Next’ 22

Yesterday, Google Cloud announced several innovations, including new solutions and improvements to Google’s data cloud, its open infrastructure cloud, and major additions to Google Workspace.

Here are the new capabilities announced in Google Cloud Next 2022:

Google’s Open Data Cloud

1. 1. Support for unstructured data in Big Query – Data teams can now manage, secure, and analyze structured and unstructured data in BigQuery, with access to many of Google Cloud’s capabilities in ML (machine learning), speech recognition, computer vision, translation, and text processing, using BigQuery’s SQL (Structured Interface of Query Language).
   2. Translation Hub – a new enterprise-scale translation AI Agent for self-serve document translation, enabling organizations to localize content in over 135 languages.
   3. Support for new data formats to help organizations get full value from their data faster – Google’s storage engine, Big Lake adds support for Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake and soon for Apache Hudi.
   4. BigQuery Integration for Apache Spark – Data practitioners can create BigQuery methods, using Apache Spark (open-source analytics engine for large-scale data processing), that integrate with their SQL pipelines.
   5. Datastream for BigQuery – organizations can replicate data in real-time, from sources including AlloyDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL and third-party databases like Oracle — directly into BigQuery.
   6. Dataplex Updates – Organizations can automate common processes related to data quality, such as understanding data lineage and data transformation.
   7. Integration of Looker and Google Studio – Data studio is now Looker Studio, which aims to help organizations infuse workflows and applications with the intelligence needed to make data-driven decisions.
   8. Enhancements for Looker and BigQuery with Microsoft Power BI – Tableau and Microsoft customers can analyze trusted data from Looker and connect to BigQuery.
   9. Vertex AI Vision – a new AI service that aims to make computer vision and image recognition AI more accessible to data practitioners while reducing the time to create computer vision applications.
   10. Expanded integrations with enterprise data platformsincluding Collibra, Elastic, MongoDB, Palantir Foundry, and ServiceNow, which aim to prevent data lock-in.

Open infrastructure cloud

1. New cloud regions coming to five countries-Google is adding cloud regions in Austria, Greece, Norway, South Africa and Sweden, to accelerate and bring innovation closer to customers, create jobs and boost the local economy. Google said the five new cloud regions announced at Google Next, and another four announced earlier this year, will contribute a combined US$40.2 billion to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by 2030 and support creating more than 314,400 jobs that year.
2. C3 machine series – C3 machine instances use offload hardware, designed for more predictable and efficient computing, high-performance storage, and a programmable packet processing capability for low latency and accelerated, secure networking . Now available in private preview, it’s the first VM (Virtual Machine) in the public cloud with a 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and with Google’s custom Intel IPU.
3. Hyperdisk – Google says its new block storage aims to deliver 80 percent higher IOPS ( Input/output operations per second) per vCPU (virtual centralized processing unit) than other leading hyperscale cloud providers.
4. Improvements to the application management platform Anthos – including improvements to the user interface, the fleet management experience, and the general availability of virtual machine support in Anthos clusters for retail edge environments.
5. Dual Run – A mainframe modernization solution, announced today, to help remove the most common barriers to moving 20+ year old mainframes to the cloud.
6. Migration Center – designed to integrate assessment, planning, transition, and innovation in one location
7. Open the XLA project – Google will work with industry leaders such as AMD, Arm, Intel, Meta, NVIDIA, and more to create a community-led and open-source ecosystem of ML (machine learning) compilers and infrastructure projects.

Google Workspace

1. Google Meet will add several features, aimed at establishing an engaging and collaborative remote work experience and bridging the gap between people working in different locations. These new features include Speaker spotlight, AI-powered cameras with Huddly and Logitech, Meeting room check-in, automatic video framing, meeting transcriptions, and more.
2. Google Chat will add custom emojis and inline threaded conversations to allow workers to express themselves more authentically. New features added to Google Chat also include broadcast-only spaces aimed at making it easier for leaders to make broad announcements and maintain connections across their organizations.
3. Smart canvas improvements enable companies to build their own templates accessible to all users, and integrate smart chips for third-party applications, including AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro, Tableau , and ZenDesk, so people can view and interact with rich third-party data without switching tabs or contexts.
4. New APIs (application programming interfaces) for Meet and Chat will give developers programmatic access to common functions like creating and starting meetings or starting messages directly from a third-party app. Asana and LumApps will be the first partners to use them in their apps. Furthermore, Meet’s add-on SDK will allow developers to embed their app directly into the Meet experience. Figma is one of our first add-on partners that allows teams to collaborate on Figma design and FigJam digital whiteboards directly on Google Meet. Finally, AppSheet and Google Chat integration lets people create and interact with custom AppSheet apps right within Chat to give people with no coding experience the skills to build web and mobile applications.

Other notable announcements

Project Starline, which creates a 3D model of a person, making it feel like they’re sitting in the same room, is entering its next phase of testing in an early access program with Google’s business partners.

Project Starline is currently available in some of Google’s offices and will be deployed to select partner offices for regular testing.

The company also announced that it has made the Google Cloud Carbon Footprint generally available, free of charge for each customer, in the cloud console. In addition, eco-friendly routing will soon be launched on the Google Maps Platform for developers, to help ridesharing and delivery companies embed eco-friendly routes into their driving applications .