By Bob Evans
Publication Date: 2026-01-12 16:00:00
Driven by CEO Thomas Kurian’s passionate commitment to building for the future rather than competing for the past, Google Cloud has become the world’s most powerful and influential cloud and AI provider, rising to No. 1 in the Cloud Wars Top 10.
It’s been a remarkable and unstoppable upward journey for Google Cloud. When I started this Cloud Wars Top 10 Exactly nine years ago, Google Cloud debuted at number 9 in the rankings. But with the hiring of Kurian two years later, the company immediately underwent a profound transformation from a world-class research and development laboratory largely disconnected from the business world to a customer-focused business innovation powerhouse whose products, ecosystem and go-to-market capabilities helped customers across industries and around the world do things that had never been possible before.
With its claim to first place, Google Cloud has displaced Microsoft, which held this top spot for four years and at the same time was by far the …
