Google Cloud Next ‘24 in Las Vegas: 'Googlers' take over world’s gambling capital

Google Cloud Next 2024 kickstarted on March 9 in Las Vegas

Against the backdrop of the ragged, barren mountains of Las Vegas, and the endless airplanes taking off and landing, the Mandalay Bay sticks out like a sore thumb, as do the other giant glittering blocks of myriad shapes and sizes that are spread out in a tiny arid stretch that is aptly called the “Strip”.

While the “Sin City” is usually known for its gambling, its casinos, its endless rows of slot machines and poker tables inside outlandish hotels, and known for being the pilgrimage of the many hopefuls, or shall we say, the many hopeless, who want to put in $100 in a blackjack game and win thousands; for the past one week, the crowd that has poured into the city has been a little bit different.

Tens of thousands of techies, analysts and journalists have been streaming in from various parts of the world for the Google Cloud Next’ 2024, which began at the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre in Las Vegas on April 9.

On Tuesday morning, at around 9 am Pacific Time (GMT -12.30), Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, clad in a black suit, trousers and shirt entered the packed 12,000-seater Michelob Ultra Arena in the Mandalay Bay hotel complex, after a 1-minute countdown to a thunderous applause from the crowd, comprising of Google executives, their customers, startups, analysts and others.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian delivering the keynote address at the Next '24 in Las Vegas on March 9

In the course of the next 1.5 hours of the keynote address, Kurian played the part of an emcee to introduce Google Cloud’s numerous new announcements, including setting the stage for virtual addresses by Google CEO Sundar Pichai etc, and also numerous live demonstrations of the company’s latest suit of generative AI products and its applications.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivering a virtual address at the Cloud Next '24 on March 9 in Las Vegas

“We’ve known for a while that AI will be the next technology to transform companies. Our investments in AI infrastructure and models help put us at the forefront of the AI platform shift,” said Pichai during his virtual address.

There was clear focus on bringing artificial intelligence to the forefront of Google products, which includes –

• Google Vids: Google announced a new AI-powered video creation app for work. Vids will be released to Workspace Labs in June
• Axion Processors: Google announced its first custom Arm-based CPU designed for the data center.“Google Axion combines Google’s expertise with Arm’s latest computer designs, to better deliver upto 50 per cent better performance, and upto 60 per cent energy efficiency than compared to current generation X86 based vx,” Kurian said at the keynote address.
• Code Assist: Google also announced an AI-powered assistance tool, Google Assist, to help developers build applications with higher velocity and quality in popular code editors like VS Code and JetBrains. This is being seen as Google’s answer to platforms such as Github and so on.
• Gemini 1.5 Pro: “We have already introduced our next generation Gemini 1.5 Pro. This  has been in private preview in Vertex Ai. It can run 1 million tokens of information consistently, to create, discover and build using AIs,” Pichai said during his virtual address.
• Gen AI agents: “Agents are intelligent assistants that will help you achieve specific goals. It can process multimodal information simultaneously and make decisions,” said Kurian.
• Security: In security, Kurian announced the introduction of Gemini into the cybersecurity investigation lifecycle. A new assisted investigation feature will be available by the end of this month, the company announced, which will guide analysts through their workflow.

As part of a live demonstration, a Google executive showed how a Gemini powered AI agent was able to read specific pieces of clothing on a video uploaded on YouTube, and locate that specific clothing on e-commerce marketplaces for a user to buy.

Over the next couple of days, thousands of attendees in Las Vegas will converge to learn more about Google Cloud, through its Showcase Demo, where interested parties can get a firsthand view of how Gen AI capabilities can be integrated into various solutions, how it can be applied in various verticals and so on.