Google Cloud has just signed one of the biggest cybersecurity deals in history with a bold $32 billion all-cash agreement to acquire Wiz, a fast-growing cloud security firm.
Awaiting Approval
The deal, still subject to regulatory approval, signals Google’s most aggressive move yet to close the gap with rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, while doubling down on multicloud and AI-driven cybersecurity.
Who Is Wiz and Why Does It Matter?
Wiz, founded in 2020 by former Microsoft cloud executives, has quickly become one of the most talked-about players in cloud security. The company offers an agentless, user-friendly platform that helps organisations identify and remediate security risks across all major cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, Oracle Cloud, and yes, Google Cloud too.
Rather than waiting for breaches to occur, Wiz scans cloud environments continuously, maps out all assets and their connections, and flags high-risk vulnerabilities in real-time. Its promise is straightforward: understand your entire cloud environment, see where the threats are, and fix them before attackers can exploit them.
For example, if a developer accidentally leaves a storage bucket open to the internet or misconfigures a sensitive workload, Wiz alerts security teams, and even helps them prioritise the most critical risks. This “code-to-cloud” view has made it hugely popular with everyone from nimble start-ups to sprawling enterprise IT teams and public sector bodies.
Results
The results speak for themselves. For example, in just under five years, Wiz has reached an estimated $700 million annual revenue run rate, with projections it would have crossed $1 billion within a year. That makes it one of the fastest-growing software companies in history (and a highly attractive acquisition target).
Why Is Google Buying Wiz Now?
Google Cloud may be strong on paper, with top-tier infrastructure, AI expertise, and a solid security record. However, it remains a distant third in the cloud infrastructure race, trailing AWS (30 per cent global market share) and Microsoft Azure (21 per cent) by a wide margin. Google Cloud sits at around 12 per cent (Statista).
This acquisition by Google Cloud is designed to change that. By bringing Wiz into the fold, Google is looking to supercharge its credibility with enterprise customers and respond to two urgent trends in tech:
1. The surge in multicloud use. Most large organisations now use a mix of cloud providers for different workloads. That makes managing security even harder — and makes a vendor-agnostic platform like Wiz essential.
2. The rising cybersecurity threat landscape. As more businesses go digital and deploy AI-driven systems, the complexity of defending modern IT environments is exploding. Wiz offers a way to simplify that defence — and make it more proactive.
In a recent blog post, Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, summed it up clearly: “Multicloud is something our customers want… Our commitment to multicloud means that new IT projects an organisation does with Google Cloud can work with their existing IT investments.”
Kurian also noted that AI is accelerating this trend: “AI architectures typically see large enterprises pool data from multiple places… This means multicloud protection is more critical than security for a centralised cache of data.”
Multicloud or Bust
Interestingly, Google is not planning to make Wiz a Google Cloud-only tool, and that’s no accident.
Wiz’s success has been built on its neutrality. Many of its customers don’t even use Google Cloud. If Google were to make Wiz exclusive, it could easily drive those users into the arms of competitors. That’s the most likely reason why the company has gone to great lengths to reassure customers that Wiz will continue to work seamlessly across all major cloud platforms.
In fact, as part of the deal, Google and Wiz have even earmarked an additional $1 billion retention package to keep key staff and leadership in place (including CEO Assaf Rappaport) and ensure continuity for clients.
As Wiz’s Rappaport puts it: “Wiz and Google Cloud are fully committed to continue supporting and protecting customers across all major clouds, helping keep them safe and secure wherever they operate.”
For Google, this “multicloud-first” positioning also helps defuse potential antitrust concerns. The deal comes at a time when Big Tech M&A activity is being watched closely by regulators in both the US and Europe. Emphasising openness, competition, and customer choice could make the acquisition easier to push through.
What’s in It for Google Cloud Customers?
From a business standpoint, the deal could be seen as a major play to strengthen Google Cloud’s value proposition to enterprise and government buyers. By integrating Wiz into its broader portfolio, alongside Mandiant, Google Security Operations, and its AI threat intelligence tools, Google hopes to create a unified, AI-optimised security platform that:
– Helps customers detect, prevent and respond to cloud threats faster.
– Lowers the cost and complexity of managing security across hybrid and multicloud environments.
– Boosts productivity of cybersecurity teams with automated tools and AI-powered agents.
– Provides “measurable defence” by helping teams test and validate their own security controls.
Example
As an example of how this could work, a large bank (e.g. using AWS for customer-facing apps, Azure for internal services, and Google Cloud for AI modelling) can now use Wiz to monitor all those environments from a single dashboard. That unified approach, backed by Google’s infrastructure and AI muscle, is what the tech giant hopes will make its cloud platform more attractive.
Wiz’s tools will also remain available via the Google Cloud Marketplace and other partner channels, giving system integrators and resellers access to a much broader toolkit for customers.
A $32 Billion Price Tag (And Plenty of Pressure)
At $32 billion, the acquisition is the largest in Google’s history, and one of the biggest cybersecurity deals ever made. To put that into perspective, it’s more than 3x the price Google paid for Motorola Mobility in 2012, and well above the $5.4 billion Amazon spent acquiring MGM Studios in 2022.
It’s also far above Wiz’s most recent private valuation, which was reportedly around $10 billion. So why the premium?
Partly, it reflects the sheer scale of the opportunity. Cloud security is one of the fastest-growing segments in enterprise IT. According to Gartner, global spending on cloud security is expected to top $18 billion in 2025, up from $13.5 billion in 2023.
Google sees Wiz not just as a product, but as a platform, and one that could become the default choice for securing modern cloud-native and AI-driven systems. The acquisition could give Google a critical edge as AI becomes more embedded in everything from healthcare to finance to national infrastructure.
However, it also raises expectations. With such a steep price tag, the pressure will now be really on Google to show real returns not just in terms of revenue, but in market share gains and customer trust.
What This Means for the Rest of the Cloud Market
For competitors like AWS and Microsoft, the acquisition of Wiz is a clear signal that Google is not backing down in the cloud wars. It’s a bet on openness, AI integration, and simplified security, and it’s likely to accelerate innovation across the industry.
However, some analysts have warned that integrating Wiz successfully won’t be easy. Cultural clashes, product overlaps, and customer scepticism could all pose challenges. There are also questions around whether Wiz’s lean, start-up-style pace can be maintained under the umbrella of a tech giant like Google.
Still, if Google can pull it off, the payoff could be significant. As cyber threats grow more sophisticated and cloud environments become ever more complex, customers will be looking for solutions that just work, regardless of where their data lives. That’s essentially the promise Google is betting $32 billion on.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
By snapping up one of the most agile and highly regarded multicloud security firms on the market, Google has positioned itself to offer something that many enterprise customers have long been asking for, i.e. a single, unified security platform that doesn’t demand vendor lock-in and can evolve with their increasingly complex IT environments.
For Google, this is about more than plugging a gap in its offering. It’s a strategic move to become a serious contender for the next wave of cloud growth, where AI, hybrid systems, and multicloud deployments are the norm. If it can successfully integrate Wiz and maintain the platform’s independence and speed of innovation, it may finally start to close the distance between itself and the cloud giants that have dominated the space for years.
For UK businesses, from financial institutions and healthcare providers to the growing ecosystem of digital-native start-ups, the benefits could be substantial. Many are already juggling data across multiple platforms, wrestling with compliance demands like GDPR, and navigating increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. A more integrated, intelligent and cloud-agnostic security solution could offer much-needed simplification, cost efficiency, and peace of mind. At the same time, UK-based security consultancies, MSPs and technology partners may find new opportunities through the Google Cloud Marketplace and expanded integrations with Wiz’s tools.
However, the deal is not without its challenges. Regulatory scrutiny remains a looming question, and customers will be watching closely to see whether Google can truly preserve Wiz’s independence in practice. There’s also the risk that the sheer scale of the acquisition could dilute what made Wiz successful in the first place: its speed, focus, and user-friendly approach.
All that said, in a market crying out for more flexible, AI-ready security solutions, this acquisition may be exactly the kind of move Google needed. Whether it pays off, and whether customers, partners and regulators will buy into Google’s multicloud pitch, remains to be seen. One thing, however, is clear – the race to secure the cloud just entered a new phase, and Google has firmly placed its bet.