Amazon and Google revealed a new multicloud networking link that ties AWS Direct Connect to Google Cloud’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect, giving enterprises quicker private pathways for AI workloads and better buffers against outages. The timing couldn’t be more pointed.
A Rare Alliance Built on Shared Pressure
Yet here they are, announcing a shared networking service that lets companies stitch together their AWS and Google Cloud environments in minutes instead of the usual weeks.
That speed alone feels like a statement.
The October AWS outage still lingers in corporate memory, rattling businesses after apps from Snapchat to Reddit went dark. Companies wanted better failover choices. Google wasn’t immune from disruptions either, though fewer made headlines recently.
Salesforce is already testing the new setup, which says something about the enterprise appetite for safety nets.
It’s not hard to imagine why.
Industry watchers call this a clear response to the growing multicloud trend. With more firms spreading workloads across providers, Amazon and Google appear to be leaning into the shift rather than resisting it.
The New Network Link That Cuts Weeks Down to Minutes
The new service ties together AWS Direct Connect and Google’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect.
It creates a private, fast lane between the two ecosystems.
Enterprises can spin it up quickly—practically instant, compared with traditional provisioning timelines.
That kind of turnaround changes expectations.
The link isn’t just about convenience.
It was built with data-heavy AI applications in mind.
A single sentence from a Google spokesperson summed up the project’s purpose: minimizing downtime and raising throughput.
It’s an unglamorous mission, but essential.
This is also the first major attempt by either company to simplify long-term hybrid architectures across their platforms.
Some engineers have quietly compared the setup to stitching two megacities with a direct high-speed rail line.
One small note: the companies clarified you can run traffic directly between the platforms without routing through the public internet.
Here’s one bullet-point takeaway that cuts right to the core of enterprise interest:
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The service gives companies an immediate fallback option if one provider experiences an outage, reducing operational risk dramatically.
That simple reality matters more than any marketing pitch.
Outage Anxiety and the Push for Reliability
Let’s be honest—outage fear has shaped every cloud discussion in 2025.
Executives still talk about the October 20 AWS event like it was yesterday.
The disruption lasted hours and spread across multiple services.
It was the kind of moment that forces long meetings and sweaty palms.
Google’s issues have been less dramatic lately.
But anyone who manages digital infrastructure knows every provider has weak days.
The new multicloud link tries to blunt the fallout when something breaks.
Direct paths between clouds allow traffic to reroute instead of collapsing.
For workloads like AI model training—which eats bandwidth like crazy—reliable, dedicated pipes can be the difference between hitting a deadline or slipping days behind.
This push for safer systems isn’t happening in a vacuum.
Companies surveyed by Gartner earlier this year showed that over 65% of large enterprises already use two or more cloud providers regularly.
A one-sentence paragraph here feels fair: that number keeps rising.
And for good reason—no one wants a single point of failure anymore.
How This Fits Into a Fierce Competitive Landscape
Nothing about the Amazon-Google relationship is gentle.
Both chase the same clients—and those clients are increasingly tempted by Microsoft’s Azure ecosystem.
Azure has been positioning itself as the most enterprise-friendly option.
It’s also grabbed headlines for bundling AI services aggressively.
That kind of competition pressures both Amazon and Google to rethink their strategies.
Working together on networking might sound odd, but it gives them both a stronger answer to Azure’s unified stack approach.
Here’s a quick snapshot comparing the three providers in this moment:
| Cloud Provider | Recent Footprint Growth (Est. 2025) | Multicloud Focus Level | Notable Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | ~21% YOY | Moderate, now increasing | Oct 2025 outage |
| Google Cloud | ~27% YOY | High | Cross-Cloud Interconnect updates |
| Microsoft Azure | ~25% YOY | Moderate | AI stack expansion |
This table isn’t about winners—it’s about context.
Everyone is chasing the same high-value customers.
Some analysts even argue this collaboration is less a friendship and more a “mutual survival tactic.”
That phrasing feels a bit dramatic, but it’s not entirely wrong.
AI Workloads and the Bandwidth Battle
AI models are only getting bigger.
The traffic they generate between data centers is equally monstrous.
Training a single frontier-level model can require petabytes of movement across clusters.
That kind of volume doesn’t tolerate flaky routing.
Amazon and Google needed a story that reassures CIOs they can handle that load.
This collaboration helps create that narrative.
A one-sentence paragraph slides in here naturally: AI stress-tests every weak point in cloud networking.
The companies have said this link supports both high-throughput and latency-sensitive tasks.
That covers everything from inference systems to real-time analytics dashboards.
There’s a real sense that this wasn’t just a technical project but a competitive must-do.
Customers demanded it, AI forced it, outages accelerated it.
Whatever the motivation, the product is here—and it simplifies how companies weave their systems together.
