Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss how Google Cloud's $3 million in computing credits could help European researchers tackle some of science's most persistent challenges.
Highlights
00:03 — Google Cloud, alongside Google DeepMind, are planning to give up to 200 leading European scientific researchers direct access to Google's frontier models, as well as $3 million in Google Cloud computing credits. The credits are essentially there to ensure researchers have the computing capacity that they need for their research.
00:27 — So, beyond the models, researchers will also have access to some incredibly powerful tools like AlphaFold 3, a well-known tool that helps predict molecular structures, WeatherNext, a weather forecasting tool, and AlphaGenome, which helps researchers study DNA. This is part of a European initiative supporting the EU's AI for Science initiative called RAISE, the Resource for AI Science in Europe.
01:08 — So, there are the obvious geopolitical impacts here. This is certainly going to give the EU's science and technology sector a boost. But for me, this is actually a lot more significant than those potential economic gains. I see this as a really outstanding demonstration of how we can pivot AI towards solving some of the problems that we've been unable to solve without this model infrastructure.
01:34 — Now, I think we've all been promised a great deal in terms of the potential social impact of AI, targeting those really difficult problems, but I think the onus has been on the developers of this technology, the companies, to make those discoveries. For me, this is a much more targeted and scalable approach.
01:54 — Google's committing resources to the RAISE initiative, but the EU is putting the wider framework in place. This, I think, is how we get to the root of some of our most persistent challenges using AI: by not only developing the technology, but also building the structures that enable it to be put to work where it's needed most, and not making it the sole responsibility of the model developers.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore why Google Cloud could achieve an astonishing 90% to 100% revenue growth rate in Q3.
Highlights
00:03 — We got some big numbers coming out later this week from SAP for Q3, and then next week we've got Google Cloud, Microsoft, ServiceNow, all on October 28 and October 29. Palantir will release its Q3 numbers the first week of November, but let's take a look here at Google Cloud's Q3.
00:25 — I think there's a very good chance the revenue growth for Q3 could be anywhere from 90% to 95%, even 100%. Let me show you the numbers that drive this thought for me. And again, Alphabet will report its results October 28. If we look over the last four quarters at Google Cloud's growth, its revenue, and its quarter-to-quarter incremental growth, which is becoming for me an extremely important metric, here's what we get.
02:00 — To hit 90% growth for Q3, Google Cloud would have revenue of $28.9 billion, and that would require it to grow in Q3 versus Q2 by $4.1 billion. That's a huge stretch, but look what it did in Q2, $4.8 billion. So even if it brings in less incremental revenue this quarter, they could still grow 90%.
02:48 — Now, to hit this 100% number, its revenue would have to be $30.4 billion. That would require an incremental growth, Q3 versus Q2, of $5.6 billion. It's a big stretch, big number, but if you look at the trajectory here of what they've been doing the past few quarters, it is a big stretch, but it is by no means unreasonable, unfeasible.
04:56 — Say Google Cloud grows only 90%. That is still just phenomenal. Twice as fast, at least, as AWS. About three times faster than Microsoft is growing. 95%, 100% — these are astonishing figures for a business as big as Google Cloud's. It shows just how well the number one company on the Cloud Wars Top 10 is doing here.

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00:10 —Microsoft has launched MAI Transcribe to Streaming, a real-time speech-to-text model and Microsoft's first model in the streaming transcription category. The new model has already proven to be incredibly powerful.
00:31 — It operates in 60 languages with continuous automatic language detection, and according to Microsoft's testing, the new model ranks number one for accuracy in both final and partial transcripts. The new model can handle partial text as the speech is arriving, which means reasoning can begin even before a speaker finishes talking, and this is particularly useful for voice agents.
00:59 — Microsoft is also launching two new voice models, MAI Voice 2.1 and MAI Voice 2.1 Flash. Microsoft has positioned this new Flash model alongside MAI Transcribe to Streaming, and I'm just going to read a line from Microsoft AI on that: "Together, they give users the fast and fluid building blocks to create conversational experiences with no compromise on accuracy or voice quality."
01:26 — Ultimately, Microsoft has set the stage here for a complete solution for voice agents. And I'll quote again from a recent Microsoft AI release: "Pairing MAI Transcribe to Streaming with MAI Voice 2.1 Flash buys time back on both ends. The time saved gives your agent more room to reason, use tools, and check its answer, all while keeping the conversation moving at a human conversational speed."
01:53 — The breadth of AI use cases is so massive that we're seeing more and more of this specificity, even from companies like Microsoft that have massive generalized AI toolkits. But to win in the AI era, it's going to take this kind of mastery of specific use cases, not just delivering a catch-all solution. Thank you for watching.

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Bob Evans welcomes Christopher Lochhead, Head Buccaneer at Category Pirates, to Cloud Wars Live, exploring the extraordinary opportunities and challenges emerging from artificial intelligence. Drawing on decades of experience in technology, entrepreneurship, and category design, Lochhead examines the rise of personal AI, the disruption of digital commerce, California's proposed billionaire tax, and growing concerns about AI regulation and corporate accountability.
Trust, Technology, and Entrepreneurship
The Big Themes
Personal AI Emerges as the Next Frontier: Lochhead argues that artificial intelligence is entering a new phase, moving beyond productivity tools toward personal AI assistants capable of managing everyday activities. While early generative AI applications focused on developers, writers, and content creators, the next major opportunity involves systems that understand users' calendars, communications, relationships, finances, and personal preferences. Lochhead identifies Meta's Muse as an early example of this emerging category, potentially positioning the company ahead of Apple and Google.
AI Shopping Threatens Traditional Commerce Models: The rise of AI-powered shopping assistants could fundamentally transform how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products. Lochhead explains that personal AI systems can already recommend purchases based on individual requirements, compare alternatives, and increasingly complete transactions. This development presents a strategic dilemma for major commerce platforms. He contrasts Amazon's reported decision to restrict Muse's shopping capabilities with Spotify's more open approach to AI-driven transactions.
AI Regulation Raises Questions About Corporate Motives: Lochhead delivers a forceful critique of Anthropic and broader AI industry narratives surrounding existential risk, sentience, and government regulation. He argues that warnings about catastrophic AI outcomes deserve scrutiny when the same companies continue developing and commercializing increasingly powerful systems. In his view, calls for strict regulation could also serve commercial objectives by restricting open-source competition and limiting corporate liability.
More about Christopher Lochhead and the topics discussed in this podcaast:
Connect with Christopher Lochhead on LinkedIn and learn about Anthropic's vision of Claude's character and California's billionaire tax debate.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I examine how CEO Aneel Bhusri is accelerating Workday's AI ambitions and positioning the company to compete with larger enterprise technology rivals.
Highlights
00:09 — Workday introduced some very interesting new agentic solutions and innovations this week at Workday Rising, and I wanted to touch on those. And also mention, I think, a very key partnership that Workday has strengthened with Anthropic. It's really going to be part of what I'm calling its all-in commitment to agentic AI.
00:35 — More recently, three big things have really paved the way for Workday's emergence into the AI field in a big time. One was about a year and a half ago, the hiring of Gerrit Kazmeier from Google Cloud. He's now Workday's president of products and technology. He's been a huge proponent for the AI boost.
00:54 — The second thing was about a year ago, the acquisition of Sana for $1.1 billion, and third was early this year, Aneel Bhusri's move from executive chairman back into the CEO role to really push this forward. So a lot of what they announced at Rising this week were the fruits of those developments.
01:18 — First, Sana is now the Workday home. It's a single, sort of wide-open AI experience that's going to run all of Workday's applications, but it also orchestrates the agentic work that's being done, not just agents that ask questions and offer suggestions, but get the work done.
01:39 — Second thing is four new, what Workday calls autopilot agents. You know, playing on the notion copilots help, autopilots actually do the work. So these autopilot agents are in accounting, payroll, talent acquisition, and deployment, where they can help you figure out the right way to handle all these things.
02:16 — Their decision intelligence is a new set of agents working across HR and finance that help model out the best scenarios, all with the grounded, governed data that Workday has. Work Intelligence helps customers figure out the right place to deploy agentic solutions, how to work those, how to get the best ROI from them.
03:12 — Now Workday, being smaller than most of the big ones like Oracle and SAP and Salesforce and Microsoft, has had to use advanced technology and being out on the front edge of these things to remain fully competitive, and to give customers the trust that Workday is going to continue to push them into some of these new advanced areas.

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