Google Cloud has formed a division which will focus on blockchain for decentralization, and could accept cryptocurrencies like bitcoin soon.
Google’s (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report Cloud has launched a new enterprise that will focus on blockchain applications in an effort for the internet behemoth to expand its services to other industries.
The new group will focus on the health care and retail sectors, according to Thomas Kurian, Google’s cloud CEO, according to CNBC. For many years Google has focused on advertising and emerging as a more dominant player for cloud storage could be positive move.
It will hire people who have blockchain experience, Richard Widmann, head of strategy for digital assets at Google’s cloud unit, told CNBC in an article. These employees will be part of the company’s plan to increase decentralization.
Companies working in blockchain and distributed-ledger-based companies such as Dapper Labs, Hedera and Theta Labs are already using Google Cloud for scalability and security, the company said in a blog post.
Other companies will be able to build, transact, store value and launch on products via blockchain-based platforms.
“This new team will enable our customers to accelerate their efforts in this emerging space and help underpin the blockchain ecosystems of tomorrow,” Yolande Piazza, vice president of financial services of Google Cloud wrote in a blog post.
Playing Catch up
Cloud infrastructure keeps growing thanks to a period of massive digital transformations occurring for enterprises all over the world.
Benefits include significant cost savings, scalability, increased security, unlimited data storage capacity, reduced environmental impacts, and more, which are qualities that almost every business today wants to take advantage of.
As of Q3 2021, Amazon AMZN is the clear leader with the company’s Amazon Web Services holding an impressive 39% of global market share.
Microsoft MSFT and it’s rapidly growing Azure cloud offering holds roughly 21% of global market share, while Google Cloud comes in third-place and has captured about 8% of global market share as of Q3 2021.
To catch up some of the initiatives that the new group will tackle include full blockchain transaction history for bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin Cash, dash, litecoin, zcash, theta, hedera hashgraph, band protocol, polygon, XRP and dogecoin and integrating Google’s partner ecosystem such as Google Cloud Marketplace. Another project will be using Google Cloud as “the connective tissue between traditional enterprise and blockchain technologies,” the blog post said.
Google Cloud also said that it is “exploring opportunities in the future to enable Google Cloud customers to make and receive payments using cryptocurrencies” in the post.
This is different from Google Pay which only takes payments via fiat currencies, said Sofia Chernova, communications manager at Google Cloud, in an email to TheStreet.
The company supports the crypto cards of Coinbase, Bitpay, Gemini and Bakkt which can be added to their Google Pay, but the transactions remain in fiat currencies.
“There is no new effort on crypto,” Chernova added.
Google did hire former PayPal (PYPL) – Get PayPal Holdings, Inc. Report executive, Arnold Goldberg, to head its payments division after previously retreating from a push into banking.
Google’s president of commerce Bill Ready told Bloomberg that crypto remains “something we pay a lot of attention to.”
“As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it,” Ready said.
