Google Cloud has partnered with the Tezos Foundation to grow its web3 app development and offer new services to its users, the organizations announced the partnership on Wednesday.
“Tezos as an entire ecosystem earned itself an image in the field of B2B and institutional onboarding,” Mason Edwards, chief commercial officer for Tezos Foundation spoke to TechCrunch. “This will enable us to join institutions and more massive institutions in this market. It will become jet fuel, and an octane solution for this.”
The collaboration will simplify the process for all Google Cloud customers to become Tezos “bakers,” or network validators. Bakers are part of Tezos’ proof of stake mechanism that helps to run the protocol and also earns benefits. Google Cloud will also become bakers and join current bakers such as gaming firm Ubisoft.
Tezos is an open-source blockchain with proof-of-stake that has over 2.3 million funds in accounts with 158.6 million transactions total on its official website. It also has partnered and is developing with major companies and brands such as Manchester United, McLaren and Societe Generale, among others.
In the last month, Tezos partnered with the California DMV to assist the agency digitize the car title and then transfer titles onto the blockchain of a private company built by Tezos, to make it easier to manage.
“Institutions are taking note and are aware that this is an area of disruption whether you’re a retailer concerned about loyalty programs, or a company that is concerned about consumer engagement, or even a major institution, blockchain is going to disrupt areas of your business,” Edwards said.
Tezos is also adamant about this collaboration as an “extremely significant signal” to the developers to have an enormous infrastructure platform such as Google Cloud on board, Edwards said.
“Web3 developers and businesses are seeking better tools for developers and an infrastructure to help speed up the development of their products,” James Tromans, the director of engineering in charge of web3 in Google Cloud, said to TechCrunch. “Developers recognize the importance of technology and we see a chance to offer differentiated services that are built on the foundation that also helps to support a variety of products and services blockchain developers are seeking to create.”
One way in which Google Cloud is trying to solve this issue is via its Blockchain Node Engine on Ethereum which is a specific node that uses Google Cloud for blockchain-based application development, Tromans noted.
“More businesses, both small and large, are interested in joining the blockchain,” Tromans said. “They are looking to read and write on the chain for blockchain-based applications.”
To see on-chain data in a large scale, Google Cloud hosts several open BigQuery data sets on their Marketplace which include all blockchain transaction histories for various networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Litecoin, Zcash, Theta, Hedera Hashgraph, Band Protocol, Polygon, XRP, and Dogecoin.
Through its corporate baking program both existing and new Google Cloud customers will be in a position to develop web3 applications and deploy indexers and nodes using Tezos Protocol. This means that developers and companies alike can take advantage of Tezos blockchain technology along with Google Cloud’s cloud infrastructure.
“Running nodes in a massive scale can be time-consuming and costly and, ultimately, diverts attention from developing the fundamental items,” Tromans said. What’s the “crux” to the partnership is supporting Tezos its corporate baking program that aims to ease the process for businesses who want to join the blockchain and assist developers in deploying nodes on the blockchain Tromans noted.
The Google Cloud partnership aims to reduce the barriers to entry for developers who want to develop on the blockchain of Tezos, Tromans added.
“This isn’t just limited to removing technological barriers because we recognize that startups within the web3 ecosystem need other types of support, including mentorship and strategies to lower their costs for infrastructure,” Tromans added. “This is another instance where Google Cloud is partnering with the Tezos Foundation to provide select startups within the web3 ecosystem this kind of support.”
Generally, Google Cloud plans to keep collaborating with “key participants in the Web3 community” in order to ensure that there is always a new innovation in open-source technology, Tromans said. “It’s not about a transactional partnership but rather is about seeking opportunities to empower the developers and founders to build this ecosystem.”
Beyond collaborations, Google Cloud plans to concentrate this year on “the fundamental principles that form the core layer of blockchain technology” Tromans shared. “We’re looking forward to developing products that meet those requirements.”
