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Google strikes $10b cloud deal with Meta to rev up AI ambitions

Mohammed Fahad

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August 22, 2025

Google strikes $10b cloud deal with Meta to rev up AI ambitions

The partnership is not just about raw computing power; it’s about fueling Meta’s relentless drive into generative AI and machine learning

When two tech giants like Google and Meta shake hands, it’s bound to grab attention — and for good reason.

Google has secured a cloud computing agreement with Meta worth over $10 billion, according to a source familiar with the details. The move signals a new chapter in the ever-intensifying arms race to build next-generation AI infrastructure.

What makes this deal notable? For starters, Google Cloud will be providing Meta with servers, storage, networking, and a full suite of cloud services.

The partnership is not just about raw computing power; it’s about fueling Meta’s relentless drive into generative AI and machine learning. The Information first brought the news to light, highlighting the scale and ambition of the agreement.

Meta’s massive AI ambitions

Meta, under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is on record for committing to spend hundreds of billions to scale up AI data centres. Earlier this month, Meta even disclosed plans to offload $2 billion worth of data centre assets to outside partners — a clear sign of its intent to spread the infrastructure burden and scale quickly.

AI is the name of the game, and Meta’s investments in large language models, like Llama, demand serious hardware and cloud resources.

Meta isn’t alone in its ramp-up. Just a few months ago, OpenAI was also reported to be turning to Google Cloud to help meet its own ballooning computing needs. As the tech sector pivots sharply toward AI, every player is scrambling for more capacity, efficiency, and flexibility in powering massive AI projects.

The landmark deal hands Google a substantial win in the fiercely competitive cloud sector, giving Google Cloud a major reference customer at a critical time. For Meta, it’s a strategic partnership that bolsters its growing AI ecosystem without having to foot every last hardware bill themselves.

As big players link up and share resources, the tech industry’s next breakthroughs will be built on partnerships as much as platform innovations. The implications for the future of AI, and for the cloud computing market as a whole, are both far-reaching and fascinating.

Riding the wave of AI demand

CEO Martin Schroeter put it succinctly: the company’s commitment extends to fostering its workforce, ramping up technical know-how, and empowering Indian communities.

With India’s surging demand for AI-driven tech transformation, Kyndryl’s deepening presence signals its readiness to seize new opportunities and lead the charge in digital innovation.

India remains a bright spot for global IT firms, especially as businesses and governments accelerate their shift to digital. Kyndryl’s solid footing in consulting, cloud, and managed services—as well as its clear investment in AI—suggests the company is all-in on India’s next big digital leap.

Zoom surges on strong AI integration and upbeat forecasts

Mohammed Fahad

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August 22, 2025

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Zoom surges on strong AI integration and upbeat forecasts

Company reports second-quarter revenue of $1.22b and expects third-quarter revenue to the same.
Company now anticipates full-year fiscal 2026 revenue in the neighborhood of $4.83b to $4.84b, noticeably higher than the previously forecasted $4.80b to $4.8b.

Zoom Communications has set a bullish tone for the rest of its fiscal year, bumping up both its annual revenue and profit targets.

The renewed confidence comes on the back of rising hybrid work trends and the rapid integration of artificial intelligence across its suite of products—a combination that spurred Zoom’s shares to a 4.5% jump in after-hours trading.

Branching beyond its video-conferencing roots, Zoom has doubled down on AI capabilities and diversified services, turning its focus on long-term sustainability.

The investment in agentic AI and feature-rich add-ons is helping the company maintain momentum in its core video product while carving inroads into new business categories.

Focuses on agentic AI features

The company now anticipates full-year fiscal 2026 revenue in the neighborhood of $4.83 billion to $4.84 billion, noticeably higher than the previously forecasted $4.80 billion to $4.81 billion.

Adjusted annual profit per share got a similar boost, now landing between $5.81 and $5.84, up from its earlier range of $5.56 to $5.59.

For the third quarter, Zoom projects revenue between $1.21 billion and $1.22 billion.

Zoom’s financial health appears robust. The company posted second-quarter revenue of $1.22 billion, closing out July 31, coupled with adjusted earnings of $1.53 a share.

Recent product launches may be fueling Zoom’s optimistic forecasts. In June, the company unveiled Virtual Agent 2.0—a smart, autonomous digital assistant capable of tackling complex actions like processing returns, updating customer accounts, or even booking appointments, all driven by cutting-edge agentic AI.

The momentum continued into July with additional agentic AI features, including a Custom AI Companion add-on designed for small businesses, which now can use AI Companion capabilities not only within Zoom but also across third-party video services such as Google Meet.

Zoom’s expansionary efforts and bold bets on AI are part of its strategy to retain the massive user base and enterprise partners gained during the pandemic surge.

India’s frontier firms take lead in AI-first work revolution

Mohammed Fahad

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August 21, 2025

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India’s frontier firms take lead in AI-first work revolution

63% of managers expect that AI training will become a core part of every team’s responsibilities within the next five years, Microsoft report says.
90% of Indian business leaders believe this is a critical year for rethinking how their organisations function—the highest such conviction globally.

This year, the landscape of work in India is buzzing with excitement and possibility, driven by an elite set of organisations known as frontier firms.

These are not your average enterprises—they’re the visionaries, the early movers already reimagining and redesigning what “work” means in an AI-first era. In fact, 59 per cent of leaders at these forward-looking companies are already putting AI agents to work, automating business processes across entire teams, according to Microsoft’s latest ‘2025 Work Trend Index.’

The numbers tell a compelling story: an extraordinary 93 per cent of Indian business leaders say they intend to deploy AI agents to expand what their teams can do in the next 12 to 18 months. There’s a sense of urgency and energy in the air as organisations embrace agility, speed, and purpose, scaling up their ambitions with every passing day.

Puneet Chandok, President of Microsoft India and South Asia, captured the moment perfectly: “India is firmly in its AI-first era, with AI agility accelerating at an unprecedented pace. We’re seeing a workforce that’s not just adopting AI, but weaving it into the very fabric of everyday work, leaning on its unmatched speed, precision, and constant availability to drive transformation.”

For many leaders, AI has already become more than just another digital tool. It’s a trusted thought partner—fueling creativity, sparking faster decisions, and changing the very nature of collaboration in a country that’s ready to jump at every new possibility. Boldness is the prevailing mood.

In fact, 90 per cent of Indian business leaders believe this is a critical year for rethinking how their organisations function—the highest such conviction globally. Productivity is top of mind for 64 per cent, and nearly all are betting that digital agents will help unlock new workforce potential over the coming year and a half.

But the transformation goes far deeper than just operational tweaks. Job descriptions are evolving. The org chart is being flipped and stretched. Suddenly, you’ll find software operators, agent bosses, and AI workflow designers sitting alongside team leads.

According to the report, 92 per cent of leaders say they’re considering adding brand-new, AI-specific roles, while 57 per cent expect teams will soon design multi-agent systems capable of automating even the most complex workflows.

Of course, none of this happens without relentless learning and skilling. Upskilling has shot to the top of leader priorities, with 51 per cent making it their focus for the next 12–18 months. Looking ahead, 63 per cent of managers expect that AI training will become a core part of every team’s responsibilities within the next five years.

India’s workforce is truly ready for this future. With 66 per cent of employees and an even higher proportion of leaders already comfortable working alongside AI agents, the foundation for AI-powered productivity is looking rock solid.

Himani Agrawal, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer for India and South Asia, captured the spirit of this transformation: “We’re not just leading businesses—we’re leading them with AI at the center. This isn’t simply a tech upgrade; it’s a sweeping cultural evolution marked by continuous learning, creative application, and scaling up at every step.”

It seems India’s boldest companies have their eyes firmly fixed on tomorrow, racing ahead as architects of the AI-first workplace revolution.

Europe’s water crisis pose big threats to its data centres

Ana Mary Joseph

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August 21, 2025

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Europe’s water crisis pose big threats to its data centres

Industry is racing to devise more efficient energy solutions—nuclear power among them—but the dilemma of water is stickier and more urgent than ever.

This year, wildfires swept across Europe with alarming intensity, devouring forests and filling the air with a haze of smoke. Droughts lingered across the continent, rivers shrank to narrow trickles, and day after day, relentless heat left the earth brittle and dry.

In the midst of these climate extremes, a new crisis was bubbling beneath the surface—one that few outside the tech industry had truly reckoned with.

For most, when talk turns to data centres—the humming, fortress-like hubs keeping our digital lives online—the immediate concern is usually energy. Indeed, much of the public debate has revolved around how much electricity these digital fortresses devour, especially as artificial intelligence surges and servers multiply.

But now, beneath the shadow of Europe’s wildfire-blackened skies, another risk is looming ever larger: water.

Climate change

Robert Pritchard, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, watched the headlines stack up with growing concern. He’d spent years tracking how climate change was warping weather: wildfires, flash floods, and summer heatwaves that scorched the land.

“Superheated ground results in less rain being absorbed into the ground,” he mused in a recent report.

“Much of it runs straight off the dry soil, destroying lives and livelihoods. Climate change is making water more precious, just as we’re demanding more of it to cool our ever-growing web of data centres.”

It’s not just fear-mongering. Some cities, like Singapore and Dublin, have slammed the brakes on building new data centres altogether, hoping to preserve both electricity and water for their citizens as infrastructure strains under exponential growth.

Meanwhile, the industry is racing to devise more efficient energy solutions—nuclear power among them—but the dilemma of water is stickier and more urgent than ever.

Shortcuts don’t exist

Pritchard observed how innovation is being thrown at the problem, with alternatives to water cooling under development and a push to drive down usage.

But the facts are sobering. New estimates from the OECD suggest that, by 2027, AI tools alone could gulp down as much as 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water each year. That’s more than all the water Denmark uses in a year, or nearly half of the UK’s annual water footprint.

Despite industry optimism, Pritchard offered a candid warning: “With most technology problems, given enough engineers and willpower, solutions emerge. But cooling data centers in the age of climate change isn’t just a tech issue. It’s also deeply political and inescapably social—the solutions need to safeguard people’s lives, not just corporate profits.”

With water, there’s no easy fallback. “There’s no water equivalent of carbon credits,” Pritchard noted pointedly. Corporations can mask emissions behind green-sounding offsets, but when it comes to water, such shortcuts don’t exist.

If the electricity goes out, a data centre might flick over to backup diesel generators. But water? Having a spare “data lake” on hand won’t save the day. And as climate-fueled resource scarcity deepens, the threat of intentional attacks on water infrastructure grows all the more perilous.

This summer, as wildfires raged and reservoirs dropped, Europe’s data centers found themselves at a crossroads. The region’s digital future might just depend on winning a battle for water—one that’s every bit as fierce as the fight against carbon.

Coinbase CEO’s bold Bitcoin prophecy: The road to $1m by 2030

Mohammed Fahad

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August 21, 2025

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Coinbase CEO’s bold Bitcoin prophecy: The road to $1m by 2030

Introduction of ETFs from heavyweights like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest has propelled cryptocurrencies into the portfolios of everyday investors.

Switching gears from points and perks to digital gold: Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder and CEO, is no stranger to headline-making statements.

When Armstrong started Coinbase back in 2012, crypto was mainly a plaything for tech geeks. He literally launched from a rented apartment—talk about humble beginnings! Flash forward to today: Coinbase is not just a household name, but a public company, serving over 100 million users globally.

Armstrong, now 41, has watched Bitcoin evolve from digital oddity to a core asset that shapes entire markets.

Now the world wanted to know where things were headed next. Armstrong—now 41 and still as quietly intense as ever—decided to lay his boldest card on the table.

“The rough idea I have in my head is we’ll see a million-dollar Bitcoin by 2030,” he declared, eyes sparkling behind his glasses. Sure, there were uncertainties, he admitted—”high error bars around these He mused how, not long ago, the thought of US government officials openly holding Bitcoin would have sounded absurd.

“That would’ve been kind of like vision board stuff, and someone would’ve said, ‘You’re crazy. The US government’s not going to officially hold Bitcoin.’ But they do now — there’s an executive order for it.”

Regulatory obstacles

For Armstrong, the landscape was changing faster than anyone could have predicted. Regulatory obstacles—historically the bane of the crypto world—were starting to crumble. He pointed to major milestones: the GENIUS Act, which carves out rules for stablecoins, and a crucial market structure bill winding its way through the Senate.

“We’re starting to see regulatory clarity emerge in the United States, which I think is a bellwether for the rest of the G20,” Armstrong explained, fingers crossed that something significant could happen before the end of the year.

Quantum computing

Armstrong’s optimism wasn’t just directed at governments. He rattled off anecdotes about giant institutions, from hedge funds to international banks, which dipped their toes into Bitcoin while waiting for clear signals from regulators.

“These big institutions I talk to, they’re holding one per cent of the portfolio in Bitcoin. And I’m like, ‘What would it take to move it to 2, 5, even 10 per cent?’ And they say, ‘Regulatory clarity.’ That’s it.”

He smiled, thinking of how the industry had matured. The introduction of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from heavyweights like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest had propelled cryptocurrencies into the portfolios of everyday investors.

“The ETFs have been huge,” he admitted. There was an undeniable shift: digital assets were no longer alien territory, but fast becoming a staple in sophisticated investment strategies.

As for technical threats, Armstrong was characteristically pragmatic. The era of hacks and fatal flaws wasn’t over, but the most chilling risks—protocol failures, hostile legislation, institutional skittishness—were fading. The next challenge on his radar was quantum computing, and he felt confident that the crypto community was moving swiftly.

“We need to make sure we upgrade it to a post-quantum cryptography,” he said. “Are elliptic curves already post-quantum or no? They are theoretically. I believe there is a path… Bitcoin core, Ethereum, Solana—everyone’s looking at proposals now.”

In Armstrong’s mind, the future was less about wild speculation and more about a deliberate, communal stride towards legitimacy. “I don’t see the regulatory thing going away. That was one of the big risks—is the government going to shut this down? I think that risk has been severely diminished.”

Meta’s massive AI ambitions

Related Posts:

Riding the wave of AI demand

Focuses on agentic AI features

Climate change

Shortcuts don’t exist

Regulatory obstacles

Quantum computing

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