At the Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas this week, Google unveiled a range of new offerings, including its next-generation AI processing chip named Ironwood, and the latest AI model, Gemini 2.5 Flash.
Google also revealed a list of AI startups that have partnered to utilize its cloud services. Among these are several prominent startups, such as Safe Superintelligence (SSI), founded by OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Included in this lineup is Anysphere, developer of the popular AI-powered code editor, Cursor, which utilizes Anthropic’s Claude models on Google Cloud. The valuation of Cursor was recently reported to be $10 billion, positioning it as a major competitor to GitHub CoPilot and, consequently, to Microsoft.
Hebbia, another startup on the list, employs AI to search extensive documents and provide answers, gaining significant traction within the legal sector. Its $130 million Series B funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Index Ventures, Google Ventures, and Peter Thiel. Hebbia is making use of Google’s Gemini models.
Magic is working on creating frontier models for automating coding and research. The decision to use Google Cloud seems aligned with its $320 million fundraising round in 2024, which included investments from Alphabet’s CapitalG and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. Magic leverages Google Cloud for its GPUs.
Physical Intelligence is focused on developing foundational software for robotics. Among its co-founders are notable figures, such as Lachy Groom. The company secured $400 million at a $2 billion pre-money valuation back in November, with support from Sequoia, Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital. Several founders, including Karol Hausman and Chelsea Finn, have ties to Google through their previous work at Google DeepMind.
In Paris, Photoroom emerges as a leading AI startup providing AI photo editing and employs Google Cloud’s Veo 2 video generating and Imagen 3 text-to-image models. Meanwhile, Synthesia is developing highly realistic AI avatars using Google’s models. This startup raised $180 million at a $2.1 billion valuation in January, with NEA leading the round and GV also investing.
Google Cloud continues to strengthen its platform to compete with Microsoft Azure and AWS in the AI workload sector.
Furthermore, Google announced the addition of Lightspeed to its venture capital partnerships, which include Sequoia and Y Combinator. Portfolio companies from these partner investors have access to Google’s AI chips and models, with potential qualifications for $150,000 in cloud credits for Lightspeed’s AI portfolio companies, highlighting Google’s strategy to attract more promising startups to its ecosystem.
Other AI startups featured this week include Augment Code, Autoscience, Big Sur AI, Captions, Eon.io, fal, Spot AI, Story, StudyHall AI, Ubie, Udio, Ufonia, Wagestream, and Wondercraft.
