Google Cloud partners with Tezo’s blockchain to bring web3 technology to its customers

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Google Cloud has partnered with the Tezos Foundation to expand its web3 application development and offer new services to its customers, the companies announced Wednesday.

“Tezos as an ecosystem has built a reputation in institutional and B2B onboarding,” Mason Edwards, chief commercial officer at the Tezos Foundation, told TechCrunch. “This will enable us to board institutions and even more massive institutions in this space. This is going to be jet fuel and octane for that.”

The partnership plans to make it easier for all Google Cloud customers to become Tezo’s “bakers,” or network validators. Bakers are part of Tezos’ proof-of-stake mechanism, helping to run the protocol and receiving rewards. Google Cloud will also become a baker, joining existing bakers such as gaming company Ubisoft.

Tezos is an open-source proof-of-stake blockchain that has more than 2.3 million funded accounts across 158.6 million total transactions, according to its website. It has also partnered and is building with major brands and companies such as Manchester United, McLaren and Société Générale, among others.

Last month, Tezos partnered with the California DMV to help the agency digitize car titles and put title transfers on a private Tezos-built blockchain to streamline operations.

“Institutions are paying attention and realizing that this will be a space for disruption; whether you’re a retailer that cares about loyalty programs or consumer engagement or a large institution, blockchain will disrupt parts of your industry,” Edwards said.

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

“Web3 developers and enterprises are looking for improved developer tools and infrastructure that can help accelerate their product timelines,” James Tromans, engineering director of web3 at Google Cloud, told TechCrunch. “Developers know the value of good 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.”

An example of how Google Cloud is trying to address this is through the 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 in the chain,” said Tromans. “They want the ability to read and write on-chain to deploy blockchain-based applications.”

To view chain data at scale, Google Cloud hosts several public BigQuery datasets in the marketplace, including full blockchain transaction history for networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Litecoin, Zcash, Theta, Hedera Hashgraph, Band Protocol, Polygon, XRP and Dogecoin.

Through its enterprise baking program, new and existing Google Cloud customers will be able to build web3 applications as well as deploy nodes and index on Tezos’ protocol. This means that both companies and developers can leverage Tezo’s blockchain technology together with Google Cloud’s infrastructure.

“Running nodes at scale is time-consuming, expensive, and ultimately takes focus away from building the core products,” Tromans said. The “crux” of the partnership revolves around supporting Tezos’ enterprise baking program, which aims to reduce friction for companies looking to participate on the chain and help developers deploy nodes on the 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 just 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,” added Tromans. “This is another area where Google Cloud is partnering with the Tezos Foundation to provide this type of support to select startups in the web3 ecosystem.”

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

Beyond partnerships, Google Cloud plans to focus this year on “the core principles underlying blockchain technology,” Tromans shared. “We are excited to build products that meet these needs.”