Google recently announced its plans for expansion in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, at its five-week virtual event Google Cloud Next OnAir EMEA. The event that kicked off last week will roll out key announcements, partnerships, and collaboration details for organizations across Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
The online event’s major announcement is the addition of new cloud regions in EMEA in 2020 — France, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Chris Ciauri, the President of EMEA at Google Cloud, stated in a blog post that they are working to keep ‘cloud up and running’ to meet consumers’ demands even during the pandemic. The President also spoke about Grace Hopper, a new subsea cable built to connect the US to the UK and Spain.
The other major announcement of the event included Google’s collaboration with the consumer and health goods organization Reckitt Benckiser and new additions in the EMEA region’s leadership team. Google has introduced Laurence Lafont as vice president for EMEA Industries (exclusive of France), Pip White as the new managing director of the UK and Ireland, Daniel Holz as vice president of the DACH and Northern region, and Samuel Bonamigo as the vice president for Southern Europe. The idea behind creating a new leadership team is strengthening the focus on customers in the EMEA region.
“At Google Cloud, we have seen first-hand the importance of keeping our cloud up and running, enabling teams to collaborate remotely and scaling to meet the changing demands of our customers. We’ve been working to help businesses and their employees, as well as governments and schools, collaborate and learn during these challenging times. At Google Cloud, we are committed to being a trusted partner to businesses of all sizes and industries across EMEA, and Google Next OnAir EMEA is just one of the ways we are investing locally,” Ciauri said.
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Additionally, Google gave out details of its collaboration with its partners and customers on sustainability initiatives. These include working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other organizations such as Stella McCartney and Unilever. Furthermore, as a part of its future plans, Google has announced its pledge to make its business carbon-free by 2030. This implies that all their data centers will run on carbon-free energy, making Google one of the first cloud providers to make this kind of commitment.
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