How AI startups are fueling Google’s booming cloud business

Google Cloud announced Thursday it has added fast-rising AI coding startups Lovable and Windsurf to its roster of customers. Both companies have chosen Google Cloud as one of their cloud computing providers, the latest sign of Google’s rising prominence against larger rivals like AWS and Microsoft Azure. Google Cloud tells TechCrunch that it handles a significant percentage of Lovable and Windsurf’s cloud and AI workloads today, though the startups are not contractually obligated to primarily work with Google.

The deals also highlight Google’s efforts to make its cloud business more central to the company’s future.

Today, Google Cloud is overshadowed by larger competitors like AWS and Microsoft, as well as Google’s much larger advertising business. But it is seeing upward momentum.

Google Cloud is one of the company’s fastest-growing business lines. On its last earnings call, Google said its cloud division hit an annual run rate of $50 billion, and cloud chief Thomas Kurian said this week the unit lined up $58 billion in new revenue over the next two years. Google generated $43.2 billion in cloud services in 2024 and $33.1 billion in 2023.

Winning contracts with leading AI startups seems to be a large driver of Google Cloud’s growth. The division says it now works with nine out of the 10 leading AI labs, including Safe Superintelligence and OpenAI, and 60% of the world’s generative AI startups. In the last year, the company says it’s seen a 20% increase in the number of new AI startups choosing Google Cloud.

While Lovable and Windsurf, which was recently acquired by Cognition, spend relatively little compared to leading AI labs or large enterprises, the bet is that they will become larger businesses in the future, and well worth the investment.

Google says the two vibe-coding startups use Gemini 2.5 Pro to power their products, which are also run on Google Cloud infrastructure. Google says Windsurf is also using Gemini models in integrations with Cognition’s AI agent, Devin.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang said the startup works with a variety of cloud providers, including Google Cloud, but it’s hard to say which company it uses the most. Lovable declined to comment.

The significant cloud costs of training, fine-tuning, and running AI models has presented a major challenge for AI model developers, including Google DeepMind with its Gemini models. But it’s been a boon for cloud businesses. The global cloud market is expected to exceed $400 billion in 2025 and grow at a rate of 20% over the next five years, according to the market intelligence and analytics firm Synergy Research.

The company on Thursday hosted its first Google AI Builder’s Forum, in which it brought together hundreds of AI startup founders and announced more than 40 new AI startups building on Google Cloud. In addition to Lovable and Windsurf, Sequoia-backed Factory AI and Andreessen Horowitz-backed Krea AI were among the customers named.

Part of the reason so many AI startups work with Google Cloud are the generous deals it offers. Many of the AI startups Google works with started on its Google for Startups Cloud Program, in which it offers $350,000 in cloud credits. Google Cloud also offers a dedicated cluster of Nvidia GPUs for startups in the Y Combinator accelerator program.

Update 9/19/25: This article has been updated to clarify language around the term “primary cloud computing provider” and include comment from Windsurf’s CEO. Neither Lovable nor Windsurf have signed a preferred cloud provider agreement, a contractual designation that guarantees a startup does a majority of their work with a single cloud provider.