Herain Oberoi, Microsoft Security

Earlier this year, Google’s parent company Alphabet made its biggest acquisition to date. Its first bid to buy Wiz, a US-Israeli cloud security startup, for $23bn, in July 2024, was rejected. Alphabet closed the deal in March, paying $32bn. The mega-deal shows just how important cloud security has become. Google has been focusing on security for some time – buying Siemplify for $500mn and Mandiant for $5.4bn, both in 2022 – but with Wiz, the focus is on multicloud and cloud security. Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, wrote in a blog post that this acquisition will “improve security by making it easier and faster for organisations of all types and sizes to protect themselves across all major clouds”.

Wiz is a multicloud platform. It has close partnerships with all the hyperscalers, and plans to keep it that way. The deal signifies two important things. In the age of AI, cloud security is more important than ever, and, even with a billion-dollar Google deal, multicloud is here to stay. Research from Flexera found that 89% of companies now have a multicloud approach, and 97% of IT leaders intend to expand their cloud systems by using one or more clouds. Nadav Zafrir, the CEO of Check Point Software, says he hasn’t spoken to a client, partner or customer that is currently using only one cloud.