Google I/O 2022, Google’s largest developer conference, kicked off with a keynote speech from Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. The keynote speech had major announcements including the launch of Pixel watch, updates on PaLM and LaMDA, advancements in AR and immersive technology etc. Let us look at the key highlights.

Watch the Cloudera Podcasts on machine learning

Data Centre & ML hub

“Recently we announced plans to invest USD 9.5 billion in data centers and offices across the US. One of our state-of-the-art data centers is in Mayes County, Oklahoma. I’m excited to announce that, there, we are launching the world’s largest, publicly-available machine learning hub for our Google Cloud customers,” Sundar Pichai said.

Powered by Cloud TPU v4 Pods, Google Cloud’s ML cluster enmpoers researchers and developers to make breakthroughs at the forefront of AI, allowing them to train increasingly sophisticated models to power workloads such as large-scale natural language processing, recommendation systems, and computer vision algorithms. At 9 exaflops of peak aggregate performance, Cloud TPU v4 Pods is the world’s largest publicly available ML hub in terms of cumulative computing power, while operating at 90% carbon-free energy.  

Sundar Pichai said Google is poised to become one of the first companies to operate all their data centres and offices on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030.

Google Tensor

The Alphabet CEO said Google Tensor, their custom SOP, would bring AI capabilities like speech recognition to your phone. Combined with Android’s private compute core, it can run data powered features directly on the device to ensure security. 

Google Tensor chip powers Pixel 6, 6Pro and the newly launched Pixel 6a and Pixel watch.

Augmented Reality

Google is heavily invested in augmented reality and integrating  AR  into many Google products, from Google Lens to multisearch, scene exploration, and Live and immersive views in Maps.

Google Live Translation AR Glasses Prototype Google I/O 2022

‘The joy that comes with speaking naturally with someone, That moment of connection to understand and be understood, That’s what our focus on knowledge and computing is all about,” Pichai said.

Google Wallet

Amidst talk of the latest updates and features in Android 13, one of the key announcements made was the launch of Google Wallet. Google Wallet is the one-stop app that can replace your real wallet in all forms and aspects. With fast and secure access to payment cards, identification cards are being transformed into digital cards that can be shared via NFC or QR codes.