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<\/p>\nCRN breaks down the 10 biggest Google Cloud news stories of 2026 so far\u2014from its $32 billion acquisition of Wiz and new AI technologies to the launch of the Google Cloud Partner Network.<\/p>\n
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From making the largest acquisition in its history to a slew of agentic AI innovation<\/a> and a brand-new partner program rollout this year, Google Cloud<\/a> has been making headlines throughout 2026.<\/p>\n The $80 billion Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud and AI giant continues to pour billions into building new data centers and AI infrastructure<\/a> in 2026 while also launching the new Google Cloud Partner Network<\/a> and hiring a new partner programs global leader, to name a few.<\/p>\n CRN breaks down the 10 biggest Google Cloud news<\/a> stories of 2026, so far, that every channel partner, investor and customer needs to know about.<\/p>\n No. 10: Google Cloud Growing Much Faster Than AWS And Microsoft In 2026<\/p>\n Google Cloud has steadily grown its cloud market share<\/a> over the past several years against its main cloud rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.<\/p>\n During the first quarter of 2026, Google Cloud sales skyrocketed 63 percent year over year to a record $20 billion\u2014more than doubling AWS and Microsoft revenue growth rates.<\/p>\n [Related: Google Cloud-IBM Team For Multibillion-Dollar AI Agent Gemini Enterprise Push<\/a>]<\/p>\n Google Cloud\u2019s 63 percent sales growth far outpaced the growth rates of both AWS and Microsoft. AWS generated $37.6 billion in sales, while Microsoft captured $34.7 billion.<\/p>\n In terms of worldwide cloud market share, Google Cloud currently owns a 14 percent share of the global market as of Q1 2026.<\/p>\n This is the most cloud market share Google Cloud has ever held in its history, according to data from Synergy Research Group. For example, Google Cloud only achieved 12 percent global cloud market share in Q1 2025.<\/p>\n The Takeaway**:** Google Cloud is growing at a faster pace than AWS and Microsoft, as it continues to grow its worldwide cloud market share. This bodes well for the second half of 2026. Click through to read about Google Cloud\u2019s nine other big stories of 2026.<\/p>\n No. 9: Global Partner Exec Leaves; Microsoft\u2019s Former Sales Head Steps In<\/p>\n Google Cloud\u2019s global partner program leader Colleen Kapase unexpectedly left<\/a> the company in March after being instrumental in creating the company\u2019s new flagship partner program that rolled out this year.<\/p>\n Google Cloud partners<\/a> told CRN they were \u201csaddened\u201d and \u201cshocked\u201d that their channel champion Kapase suddenly left Google after only two years, with the departure coming amid the new Google Cloud Partner Network rollout.<\/p>\n Kapase (pictured) has since taken a top channel post at AI juggernaut OpenAI to lead a channel charge. \u201cWe are here building an epic Go-To-Market Sales, Marketing, Operations and Partner machine tailor made and laser focused on AI,\u201d Kapase said in April.<\/p>\n Interestingly, longtime Microsoft channel sales veteran David Smith replaced Kapase as Google Cloud\u2019s new partner programs leader.<\/p>\n Smith spent 27 years at Microsoft from 1998 until joining Google in November 2025. His last executive role at Microsoft was vice president of worldwide channel sales.<\/p>\n \u201cMy belief is that partners of all dimensions, including size, are extremely important to Google and I\u2019m going to ensure that we embrace the partner ecosystem holistically,\u201d Smith told CRN this year. \u201cI\u2019m going to make sure that there\u2019s no part of the ecosystem that wants to work with Google, that doesn\u2019t feel like their voice is being heard\u2014that could be an existing partner or a new partner \u2014and I\u2019m going to bring it all together to help Google take it to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Although Google Cloud lost a top channel veteran in Kapase, it found a replacement in Smith who has just as much channel experience, cloud knowledge and understands Google\u2019s AI partner strategy.<\/p>\n No. 8: No Big Layoff Rounds At Google In 2026 (So Far)<\/p>\n With Google Cloud sales and market share currently at all-time highs, there hasn\u2019t been any huge layoff announcements from the cloud giant in 2026.<\/p>\n In prior years, the company has conducted massive layoff rounds that impacted thousands of employees. For example, in 2023, Google<\/a> announced a 12,000 lay off round, followed by smaller layoff<\/a> rounds in 2024 and 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n This year, many tech giants including Oracle<\/a> and Amazon<\/a>, conducted large layoff rounds that impacted thousands of employees. However, Google hasn\u2019t had any massive layoffs this year so far.<\/p>\n Google Cloud parent company Alphabet currently has a $4.4 trillion market cap.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s shares hit an all-time high of nearly $400 per share in May 2026.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Google Cloud is growing revenue, share price and enterprise customers at such a rapid pace that it didn\u2019t need to conduct a large employee layoff round for any type of restructuring or realignment. For Google Cloud employees, this momentum hopefully continues for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n No. 7: Google Launches The Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform<\/p>\n On the innovation front, Google Cloud has been focused on building new or expanded agentic and AI agent solutions in 2026. Google has been successfully pushing more into enterprise accounts year after year by building enterprise-focused products, which is why the launch of Gemini Enterprise was so important.<\/p>\n Google Cloud\u2019s arguably biggest agentic launch this year was the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform<\/a> for building, scaling, governing and optimizing AI agents. The platform brought model selection, model building and agent building capabilities together with new features for agent integration, DevOps, orchestration and security.<\/p>\n The new agentic AI solution provides a single destination for technical teams to build agents to transform services and operations with the agents seamlessly being delivered to users through the Gemini Enterprise app.<\/p>\n From a new Agent Studio and Agent Development Kit to a re-engineered Agent Runtime and centralized control, Google\u2019s innovation engine was on high for the new agent platform aimed at helping clients move from managing individual AI tasks to driving business outcomes.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: The Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform is an evolution of Google\u2019s former Vertex AI platform. This year, Google is showing that it is willing to constantly improve and update its flagship agentic AI products to better suite enterprises.<\/p>\n No. 6: Google Doubles Down On Anthropic As IPO Nears; Google Holds Big Stake In Anthropic<\/p>\n Anthropic committed to spending a whopping $200 billion with \u200cGoogle Cloud over five years \u200cas part of a new agreement signed in 2026 as Google and Anthropic continue to double down on their coopetition and AI capacity strategy.<\/p>\n In April, Google committed up to $40 billion into Anthropic\u2014including $10 billion immediately, with the remaining $30 billion contingent on milestones.<\/p>\n Additionally this year, Anthropic secured 5 gigawatts worth of Google computing capacity as part of a deal with Google and Broadcom.<\/p>\n Google initially poured $2 billion into Anthropic in 2023. Court documents confirm that Google holds roughly 14 percent of Anthropic in straight equity, hard-capped contractually at 15 percent, according to a report<\/a> by Fortune. This means that Google has a stake in Anthropic worth approximately $135 billion with the startup\u2019s valuation being around $965 billion.<\/p>\n Although Google Gemini competes with Anthropic in the AI model and services market, Google has been more than willing to offer Anthropic products on Google Cloud solutions. Anthropic\u2019s Claude models are now offered on Google Cloud\u2019s most popular platforms including the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Google has doubled down on its Anthropic partnership in 2026, hopeful that its investment pays off as Anthropic is expecting to hit the public markets later this year.<\/p>\n No. 5: Google Cloud Unveils $750 Million Partner Fund<\/p>\n Google Cloud launched a new $750 million fund for Google partners<\/a> to provide them with new resources and incentives to drive more agentic AI customer adoption.<\/p>\n The new fund is specifically focused on channel partners\u2014including global consulting firms and systems integrators\u2014to provide financial incentives when building AI agents for customers and integrating the agents into existing software and workflows.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s $750 million fund targets large-scale training, enablement, and partner collaborations, with forward-deployed engineers leading workshops and helping build prepackaged agents for distribution through the Google Cloud Marketplace.<\/p>\n The fund also covers pre-sales investments, including co-funding minimum viable products that use customer production data to demonstrate business outcomes and support broader scaling.<\/p>\n Lastly, the fund includes post-sales activity-linked incentives for driving customer go-lives and activating usage.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Injecting $750 million into adding more partner resources and financial incentives to drive agentic AI adoption shows that Google Cloud is a global leader when it comes to channel programs that drive AI sales and profitability.<\/p>\n No. 4: Google\u2019s $185 Billion CapEx Goal And Data Center Charge<\/p>\n Google Cloud hasn\u2019t been shy about how much money it plans to invest in data centers<\/a> and AI infrastructure in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board,\u201d said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in February. \u201cTo meet customer demand and capitalize on the growing opportunities we have ahead of us, our 2026 CapEx investments are anticipated to be in the range of $175 to $185 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n This would represent nearly doubling the $91 billion Google spend on CapEx in 2025.<\/p>\n This year, Google unveiled a $15 billion investment plan to build a new data center in Missouri, as well as spending billions on building two new data centers<\/a> in Minnesota and Texas.<\/p>\n The global data center capacity market<\/a> has shifted from being led by on-premise enterprises to now dominated by cloud hyperscalers, which currently own a whopping 1,360 large data centers. Google is one of the largest spenders in the world on building new data centers and AI infrastructure to meet the surging demand.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Google is doubling the amount of CapEx spending in 2026 to continue to build new cloud and AI capacity to meet the growing needs of businesses. Google is investing heavily today to meet the demands of tomorrow.<\/p>\n No. 3: Google\u2019s New TPUs And Gemini Products For AI Era<\/p>\n Some of the biggest AI product launches this year from Google Cloud were around Gemini innovation<\/a> and new TPUs [tensor processing units].<\/p>\n In 2026, Google unveiled its eighth generation of its TPUs, which included two distinct chips and specialized systems engineered for the agentic era: the TPU 8t and the TPU 8i.<\/p>\n The TPU 8t is optimized for training, designed for high-throughput AI workloads, while Google\u2019s new TPU 8i is optimized for inference and reinforcement learning.<\/p>\n On the Gemini front, Google revamped its Gemini Enterprise App with new capabilities including the ability to build and deploy long-running agents that independently solve complex problems up to days at a time, managed entirely through a new Inbox command center.<\/p>\n Other big Gemini launches this year included Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google\u2019s first model that combine frontier intelligence with action, as well as Google\u2019s new Spark agent\u2014a personal AI agent in the Gemini app.<\/p>\n Google also launched a new Gemini 3.1 Pro model, Agentic Vision for Gemini 3 Flash and a new Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience this year.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: Google is pouring billions into optimized TPUs on Google infrastructure to accelerate AI workloads, while at the same time, constantly creating new products to its Gemini family of models, services and agents.<\/p>\n No. 2: Google Completes $32 Billion Acquisition Of Security Star Wiz; Integration Already Underway<\/p>\n Google officially completed its blockbuster $32 billion acquisition of Wiz in March, strategically tucking the security company under the Google Cloud umbrella.<\/p>\n Google and Wiz are beginning to build new unified security platforms aimed at improving the speed with which organizations can detect, prevent, and respond to threats using AI.<\/p>\n At Google Cloud Next 2026, the Wiz platform added new support for Databricks, along with support for several agent studios including AWS Agentcore, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, Microsoft Azure Copilot Studio and Salesforce Agentforce.<\/p>\n As part of Google Cloud now, Wiz also launched a new security technology for securing AI-native development, including new protections for vibe-coded applications via an integration with Lovable. Other new Google-Wiz capabilities include new inline AI security hooks that boost security for AI-generated code and new agent-powered remediation capabilities leveraging Wiz Skills.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\".\/media_113a2f46b7c0a469c797628f1144db3c56bd3d6f2.png?width=750&format=png&optimize=medium\")
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