New network design principles and innovations

From answering search queries, to streaming YouTube videos, to handling the most demanding cloud workloads, for over 25 years, we’ve been relentlessly pushing the boundaries of network technology, building a global infrastructure that powers Google and Google Cloud for billions of users and enterprise customers globally. We now stand at another pivotal moment, driven by the transformative power of AI, and our network is once again evolving to meet the challenges and opportunities of this new era. 

Here’s a look behind the scenes at the evolution of our global network, from enabling the early days of web search, to today, powering demanding AI workloads to bring AI’s benefits to everyone — people and businesses alike.

Our network’s evolution

There have been several fundamental inflection points for the Google network over the last 25 years, leading to three distinct networking eras:

Internet era: Our journey began in the ...