Google Cloud Unveils Major Round of Database Enhancements
Google Cloud unveiled a major round of database enhancements at its Next 2025 conference, including a host of new AI features in AlloyDB, a MongoDB-compliant API for Firestore, continuous materialized views in BigTable, MCP connections galore, new database migration services, and the introduction of Oracle Exadata in its cloud.
AI-Focused Data Processing
When it comes to AI, Google Cloud is seeing a considerable amount of momentum in AlloyDB, its Postgres-flavored relational database service. The company adopted the open source pgvector extension for Postgres in mid-2023, allowing AlloyDB customers to store vector embeddings directly in their database and query them using the extension’s approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) algorithm.
In April 2024, Google Cloud added the internally developed Scalable Nearest Neighbor (ScaNN) algorithm to AlloyDB, giving its database an immediate 8x performance boost in creating vector indexes, a 4x boost in serving vector queries, and a 10x boost in write throughput, according to its April 2024 white paper.
Agentic AI
Now the company is preparing AlloyDB database for the next round of AI innovation: agentic AI. That work takes several forms, which the company outlined at its Next 2025 conference at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
For starters, the company is enabling its new Google Agentspace offering, which uses Google’s Gemini AI model to power autonomous AI agents, to conduct structured data searches in AlloyDB. Now GenAI developers can get access to all of the data stored in AlloyDB–structured, unstructured, and real-time–to build AI agents.
Other DB Announcements at Next 2025
It’s not all the GenAI and AlloyDB show at Google Cloud, which sports half-a-dozen or so distinct database offerings. One of those other databases is Firestore, the company’s NoSQL document store.
At Next 2025, the company announced the addition of a MongoDB-compatible wire protocol to Firestore, which will essentially enable customers to plug in Firestore as the backend to applications that are currently backed by MongoDB, the JSON data store that’s immensely popular with developers.
Bigtable, the company’s other NoSQL database (of the wide-column variety, ala Cassandra) is also getting some new capabilities at Next 2025. Specifically, Google Cloud is giving Bigtable continuous materialized views, which will provide an easy way to build counters for real-time analytics.
Conclusion
Google Cloud is continuing to innovate in the database space, with a focus on AI and machine learning. The company’s AlloyDB database is seeing significant momentum, and its partnership with Oracle is expanding. With the introduction of MongoDB-compatible wire protocol to Firestore and continuous materialized views in BigTable, Google Cloud is providing developers with more flexibility and options for building their applications.
FAQs
Q: What is AlloyDB?
A: AlloyDB is a Postgres-flavored relational database service offered by Google Cloud.
Q: What is GenAI?
A: GenAI stands for Generalized Artificial Intelligence, which refers to AI systems that are designed to perform a wide range of tasks and can learn from experience.
Q: What is the significance of the MongoDB-compatible wire protocol in Firestore?
A: The MongoDB-compatible wire protocol in Firestore enables customers to plug in Firestore as the backend to applications that are currently backed by MongoDB, providing more flexibility and options for building their applications.
Q: What is continuous materialized views in BigTable?
A: Continuous materialized views in BigTable provide an easy way to build counters for real-time analytics, allowing developers to get faster insights from their data.
