Google Cloud partners with Tezos blockchain to bring web3 technology to its customers

Tezos also sees this partnership as an “extremely strong signal” for the developer community to have a massive infrastructure platform like Google Cloud on board, Edwards added.

“Web3 developers and enterprises are looking for enhanced developer tooling and infrastructure that can help accelerate their product timelines,” James Tromans, engineering director for web3 at Google Cloud, said to TechCrunch. “Developers know the value of great technology, and we see an opportunity to provide differentiated offerings that build on top of the foundation that similarly supports many of the products and services that blockchain developers seek to build.”

One example of how Google Cloud is trying to address that is through its Blockchain Node Engine on Ethereum, a dedicated node service that leverages Google Cloud for blockchain-based application development, Tromans noted.

“More companies, both large and small, also want to participate on-chain,” Tromans said. “They want the ability to read and write on-chain to deploy blockchain-based applications.”

To view on-chain data at scale, Google Cloud hosts several public BigQuery datasets on its Marketplace, including full blockchain transaction history for networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Litecoin, Zcash, Theta, Hedera Hashgraph, Band Protocol, Polygon, XRP and Dogecoin.

Through its corporate baking program, new and existing Google Cloud customers will be able to build web3 applications as well as deploy nodes and indexers on Tezos’ protocol. This means companies and developers alike can leverage Tezos blockchain technology alongside Google Cloud’s infrastructure.

“Running nodes at scale is time-consuming, costly and ultimately pulls focus away from building the core products,” Tromans said. The “crux” of the partnership revolves around supporting Tezos’ corporate baking program, which aims to reduce friction for companies looking to participate on-chain and help developers deploy nodes on its blockchain, Tromans noted.

At its core, the Google Cloud partnership aims to lower the barrier to entry for developers to build on the Tezos blockchain, Tromans said.

“This is not only limited to reducing technological barriers, as we are aware that startups in the web3 ecosystem require other forms of support such as mentorship and ways to reduce their infrastructure costs,” Tromans added. “This is another area where Google Cloud is partnering with the Tezos Foundation to provide select startups in the web3 ecosystem with this type of support.”

In general, Google Cloud plans to continue partnering with “key players in the web3 ecosystem” to keep growing innovation for open source technologies, Tromans said. “It’s not about a transactional relationship; instead, it’s about looking for opportunities to empower and enable founders and developers to grow the ecosystem.”

Outside of partnerships, Google Cloud plans to focus this year on “the core principles at the base layer of blockchain technology,” Tromans shared. “We’re excited to build products that address those needs.”