Google Cloud adds Casper Labs to growing portfolio of Web3 partnerships

Google Cloud first announced its splash in Web3 in the first half of 2022. Patrícia de Melo Moreira—AFP/Getty Images

Google Cloud said on Tuesday that it will partner with Casper Labs, the company that develops and maintains the Casper blockchain, which is aimed at large companies and public institutions.

As part of the partnership, Casper Labs will move part of its infrastructure over to Google Cloud’s servers as well as give developers working with the Casper blockchain access to the cloud provider’s storage and hosting space.

“This collaboration just helps ensure that we’re making things truly accessible to people who want to use this technology but just can’t figure out how,” said Mrinal Manohar, co-founder and CEO of Casper Labs. Fortune.

The addition of Casper Labs, which launched Casper in March 2021, to its growing list of blockchain partnerships is the latest in a series of moves by Google to boost its Web3 presence as it competes with Amazon Web Services, which is also announcing its own partnerships with blockchain labs and foundations. Google Cloud’s tie-up with Casper Labs is also potentially an attempt to diversify its Web3 portfolio, as Casper markets its technology to large enterprises and government agencies.

Manohar speculated that Casper’s focus on larger institutions, which are “really sticky, long-term customers,” is attractive to Google Cloud. A spokesperson for Google’s cloud computing arm declined to elaborate on why it chose Casper, but pointed to a statement from James Tromans, Web3 engineering director at Google Cloud, who said that through its work with Casper Labs, Google Cloud can “provide secure, reliable, and sustainable cloud infrastructure for developers.”

Unlike other blockchains, Casper has a mix of add-ons that make it attractive to large organizations, Manohar said. This includes the use of existing programming languages, not those specifically developed for the blockchain, as well as the ability for users to mix private blockchains with the public chain. (This feature is especially important, he said, when you’re dealing with sensitive information, like social security numbers.)

While Manohar said he was unable to disclose all of Casper Labs’ clients, he pointed to its partnership with IPwe, a patent firm, as an example.

Google Cloud’s collaboration with Casper Labs is the latest public step into the Web3 world. In the first half of 2022, it announced the creation of its digital assets and Web3 team. In the fall of 2022, it unveiled one of its first offerings, a partnership with Coinbase to allow some of Google Cloud’s customers to pay for server space with cryptocurrency. They then launched the Blockchain Node Engine, a streamlined way for developers to access and use blockchains on Google’s servers.

Google Cloud’s Blockchain Node Engine currently only supports Ethereum, and will support Solana in the near future, a spokesperson said. At the same time, the cloud computing giant is collaborating with other blockchains and blockchain developers, including Aptos and BNB Chain, in a number of ways. Just last week, before announcing the Casper Labs tie-up, Google Cloud said it would partner with the Tezos Foundation, which promotes the use and development of the Tezos blockchain.