\n<\/p>\n
The network they\u2019ll use has evolved over the decades to meet dramatic shifts in technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the early days, we built the network for applications like Search and Ads, and our focus was reliability, scale and efficiency,\u201d Subhasree says. \u201cWhen we acquired YouTube and moved into streaming, we adapted the network to ensure we delivered high-quality video. With the rise of cloud computing and Google Cloud \u2014 when suddenly we weren\u2019t just supporting our own apps, but our customers\u2019 \u2014 we focused on greater resiliency, security and regional reliability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AI era brought new challenges, starting with the scale of traffic AI-powered apps and model training sends to our network. \u201cWe introduced a multi-shard horizontal network architecture to swiftly grow capacity,\u201d Subhasree says. \u201cHere, each shard is essentially a different instance of the network that exists independently, and we can scale the network within each shard as well as increase the number<\/i> of shards as demand increases. It\u2019s like we\u2019re offering capacity from multiple ISPs, which ensures redundancy, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
With this new architecture, we increased our WAN bandwidth by 7x between 2020 and 2025. And as the network\u2019s architecture evolved, so too did its physical scale, with new data centers, cloud regions and cables creating greater reach and capacity.<\/p>\n
Customers have already been using Cloud WAN in the lead up to launch, including Nestl\u00e9, the world\u2019s largest food and drink company. They connected with Google after deciding to shift to a cloud-based network backbone. Following the deployment of Cloud WAN, including using the global Premium Tier network to connect their branches to their cloud ecosystem, Nestl\u00e9\u2019s global head of IT platforms shared that their app performance is up 40% \u2014 and costs are down.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gratifying to hear those customer stories,\u201d Subhasree says. \u201cWe were initially building Cloud WAN just for Google and now we\u2019re building it for everyone. With the diversity of applications we\u2019re running and the volume of data, that\u2019s a huge responsibility \u2014 it\u2019s, dare I say, uncomfortably exciting<\/i>. But we\u2019ve put an incredible amount of work into this network, and we\u2019re ready to help the world connect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n