Sundar Pichai Is ‘very Excited’ About Google Cloud’s Openai Partnership

Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he is “very excited” to proviso OpenAI, nan hunt giant’s largest competitor successful AI, pinch unreality computing resources to train and service nan company’s AI models arsenic portion of a precocious struck partnership.

“With respect to OpenAI, look, we are very excited to beryllium partnering pinch them connected Google Cloud,” said Pichai connected Google’s 2nd 4th net telephone connected Wednesday. “Google Cloud is an unfastened platform, and we person a beardown history of supporting awesome companies, startups, AI labs, etc. So ace excited astir our business location connected nan unreality side, and we look guardant to investing much successful that narration and increasing that.”

The remark came soon aft analysts peppered Pichai and different Google executives pinch questions astir really AI would impact its halfway hunt business and why Google is spending an other $10 cardinal connected superior expenditures this twelvemonth to drawback up successful nan AI race. Roughly 2 and a half years since nan motorboat of ChatGPT, Google has now shifted its attraction squarely connected processing starring AI models and products to compete pinch OpenAI.

ChatGPT is simply a awesome threat to Google Search, but nan OpenAI woody marks a monolithic caller customer for Google Cloud. It’s a treacherous narration for Google to navigate; OpenAI whitethorn yet usage Google’s unreality infrastructure and chips to upend nan company’s halfway Search product.

Earlier this month, OpenAI quietly added Google Cloud to a nationalist database of suppliers that it uses for unreality computing services, alongside Microsoft and Oracle. Reuters antecedently reported successful June that OpenAI was considering tapping Google Cloud for extra computation power.

Notably, Google Cloud gross soared successful nan 2nd 4th of 2025 to $13.6 billion, up from $10.3 cardinal successful nan aforesaid 4th past year. Google attributes a important chunk of that maturation to nan Google Cloud Platform and different products it connection to AI companies. Google Cloud is still a mini business comparative to Google Search, but it seems to beryllium increasing successful nan AI era.

Several ample AI labs person tapped Google Cloud arsenic a unreality computing partner, including Anthropic, Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence, Fei Fei Li’s World Labs, and now OpenAI. Pichai noted connected nan net telephone that nan institution has been successful astatine winning deals pinch ample AI labs acknowledgment to its ample proviso of Nvidia GPU chips and in-house TPU chips.

Google Cloud seems for illustration a smart partner for OpenAI. The startup is highly constrained erstwhile it comes to Nvidia GPUs, which it uses to train caller AI models and service them to hundreds of millions of users. Those constraints person been a major hostility constituent pinch OpenAI’s biggest backer and largest unreality computing partner, Microsoft, forcing nan ChatGPT-maker to move to its competitors successful nan unreality market.

On nan AI front, Google seems to beryllium doing amended than initially expected. The institution said its AI chatbot, Gemini, now reaches 450 cardinal monthly progressive users, and AI Overviews reaches 2 cardinal monthly progressive users. However, nan business astir these products remains unclear, arsenic does nan stock of queries they’re taking from Google Search.

It’s difficult to ideate that Pichai is genuinely that excited astir moving pinch OpenAI, a institution that represents nan biggest threat Google Search has ever faced. The business is reminiscent of Google’s woody pinch Yahoo from decades ago, erstwhile it was conscionable a startup, and utilized Yahoo’s homepage arsenic an accelerant to overtake it arsenic nan beforehand doorway to nan internet. How lasting OpenAI’s narration pinch Google is remains to beryllium seen.