After Google Cloud announced that it would offer a product called the “Blockchain Node Engine” and further noted that Ethereum would be the first blockchain supported, the company revealed it was running a Solana validator on Nov. 5, 2022. Google said that the cloud division is currently working with Solana in order to bring the firm’s Blockchain Node Engine to the Solana chain.
Google Is Operating a Block-Producing Solana Validator, Firm’s Cloud Division Aims to Add Solana to Blockchain Node Engine’s Supported Blockchains in 2023
Google is stepping toward other blockchains after revealing the Blockchain Node Engine at the end of October. According to a tweet from Google Cloud’s official Twitter account, the firm is already running a Solana validator. “Google Cloud is running a block-producing [Solana] validator to participate in and validate the network,” the company tweeted. The company added:
Google Cloud is working with [Solana] to bring Blockchain Node Engine to the Solana chain next year, so it will be easy for anyone to launch a dedicated Solana node in the cloud.
In addition to bringing Blockchain Node Engine support to Solana, Google Cloud will be indexing the Solana blockchain and bringing the data to “Big Query” next year. The goal is to “make it easier for the Solana developer ecosystem to access historical data.” Solana’s native token solana (SOL) jumped in value on the announcement and SOL is up 7.8% higher against the U.S. dollar this week.
However, not everyone was thrilled about Google’s mission to host Solana nodes in the cloud. “This … Is not a good thing. More and more centralization. This is like the opposite point of crypto,” one person criticized in the Google Cloud announcement thread on Twitter. Another individual agreed with the person’s critique and replied: “Crypto went full redacted in 2017. People now celebrate centralized and custodial services because it makes number go up.”
