Google showcased a prominent array of cutting-edge AI startups this week at its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas, where it also unveiled several newly-developed technologies, prominently highlighting its next-generation AI accelerator chip, Ironwood, and its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5 Flash.
Among the notable startups adopting Google Cloud is Safe Superintelligence (SSI), founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. This addition underscores Google’s intensifying push into high-profile AI services.
Also joining Google’s cloud ecosystem is Anysphere, known primarily for Cursor, an AI-driven code editor utilizing Anthropic’s Claude AI models via Google Cloud. Cursor recently achieved a $10 billion valuation, positioning it as a robust competitor to Microsoft-owned GitHub CoPilot.
Hebbia, another significant inclusion, leverages Google’s Gemini AI models to facilitate rapid search and Q&A functionality for analyzing extensive documents, particularly appealing to the legal industry. Supported by top-tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Google Ventures, and Peter Thiel, Hebbia raised an impressive $130 million during its recent Series B funding round.
AI startup Magic, focused on developing advanced coding and research automation models, raised $320 million in 2024 in funding that notably included Alphabet’s growth fund CapitalG and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The startup announced it will utilize GPUs provided by Google Cloud for its computational infrastructure.
Physical Intelligence, aiming to develop foundational software for robotics, counts among its co-founders renowned venture investor Lachy Groom and senior researchers previously affiliated with Google’s DeepMind, such as Karol Hausman and Chelsea Finn. Securing a $400 million investment at a $2 billion valuation, Physical Intelligence is backed by heavyweight investors like Sequoia, Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital, and is now aligned strategically with Google Cloud.
Paris-based Photoroom offers highly popular AI photo editing tools and will utilize Google’s Veo 2 and Imagen 3 models to enhance its AI-driven content creation capabilities.
Synthesia, provider of hyper-realistic AI avatars, raised $180 million in a round co-led by NEA, with participation from Google Ventures. It plans extensive use of Google’s technology in its sophisticated content generation solutions.
These startups represent a strategic assembly Google has cultivated to bolster its competitive edge against Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS in the rapidly growing AI cloud market. Furthermore, Google introduced venture capital firm Lightspeed as a new partner alongside Sequoia and Y Combinator. Portfolio companies within this partnership gain access to Google’s powerful AI hardware and software, receiving valuable incentives such as up to $150,000 in cloud credits, which Google expects will further attract promising startups.
Other highlighted startups leveraging Google Cloud technologies include Augment Code, Autoscience, Big Sur AI, Captions, Eon.io, fal, Spot AI, Story, Studyhall AI, Ubie, Udio, Ufonia, Wagestream, and Wondercraft, each applying AI innovations to diverse applications from e-commerce personalization to healthcare analytics and AI-powered content generation.
Altogether, the impressive portfolio displayed at this year’s Google Cloud Next exemplifies Google’s aggressive advancement into AI infrastructure, setting a notable benchmark for the cloud industry.
