Google Cloud Reported Serious Global Outages

Google Cloud experienced significant global outages on Thursday, disrupting a range of major online services and platforms. “We are experiencing service issues with multiple GCP products,” read a status update on the Google Cloud website, indicating the disruptions began at 1:51 p.m. Greek time. “Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue,” the company stated.

Downdetector, a website tracking real-time service disruptions, logged over 13,000 outage reports for Google Cloud around 2:30 p.m. Greek time, though that number dropped significantly by early afternoon.

Later in the day, Google acknowledged that customers were “still experiencing varying degrees of impact” and that engineers were working to restore full functionality. However, the company said it did not yet have an estimated time for resolution.

The outages are a major setback for the tech giant, which has been striving to keep pace in the cloud infrastructure race with leading competitors Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The cloud division—led by Thomas Kurian—has been one of Google’s fastest-growing segments in recent years, fueled by rising demand for AI-related products and services.

Parent company Alphabet has also been cutting costs, including layoffs in sales, customer experience, internal operations, and marketing teams, as reported by CNBC in February.