For most of cloud computing’s history, connecting workloads across AWS and Google Cloud meant weeks of manual work: procuring physical circuits, negotiating IP addressing, configuring BGP sessions, and managing routing policies across teams that rarely worked together. Enterprise IT paid a real operational tax just to use two clouds simultaneously.

That changed in December 2025 when AWS and Google Cloud announced a jointly engineered solution that turns cross-cloud connectivity into something closer to a three-step console workflow.

Inside the Multicloud Networking Partnership

The product has two sides. AWS calls theirs AWS Interconnect – Multicloud. Google’s side is Cross-Cloud Interconnect for AWS. Together, they create private, encrypted, high-bandwidth connections between AWS VPCs and Google Cloud VPCs without requiring customers to touch physical infrastructure or write routing configurations from scratch.

Provisioning that previously took weeks now completes in minutes. Bandwidth starts at 1 Gbps in preview and scales to 100 Gbps at general availability. All traffic between the two providers runs over MACsec encryption at the physical layer, meaning data in transit is protected at the hardware level, not just at the application layer. Quad-redundant interconnect facilities back the resiliency architecture, and both providers run continuous monitoring on the connection.

If your team has spent months wrestling with colocation cross-connects and custom Transit Gateway configs just to keep two clouds talking, that complexity now has a native exit ramp

Also read: Best Practices for Effective Cloud Network Monitoring & Management

Why Two Cloud Giants Cooperating Is Actually the Bigger Story

AWS and Google Cloud do not collaborate often. They compete aggressively on price, AI capabilities, and enterprise contracts. The fact that they jointly engineered a product, published an open API specification on GitHub, and announced Salesforce as a launch customer on day one signals something more deliberate than a simple product release.

The open specification piece matters beyond the AWS-Google relationship. Any cloud provider can adopt the Connection Coordinator API, which is built on OpenAPI 3.0. Microsoft Azure is confirmed to join later in 2026, though no firm launch date has been announced. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure had already been part of Google’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect since July 2024. The direction is toward an industry-wide interoperability standard, not a bilateral deal that locks you into two specific vendors.

That open approach directly addresses years of regulatory criticism. UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority have scrutinized cloud market concentration, and the European Commission has been watching egress fee practices closely. A published, vendor-neutral specification gives both companies defensible ground when those conversations come up.

Three Moves Worth Making Before Azure Joins

The practical implications depend on where your organization sits today.

If your team currently runs workloads across AWS and Google Cloud and manages connectivity through a third-party multicloud networking vendor like Aviatrix or Alkira, you now have a native alternative worth evaluating. The preview is currently free, available across five regions including Northern Virginia, Oregon, and Frankfurt. That is enough coverage to run a meaningful pilot against your existing setup on latency, operational simplicity, and cost.

If your organization has been avoiding a dual-cloud architecture specifically because the networking complexity was prohibitive, that barrier is substantially lower now. Teams can connect AWS Transit Gateway, AWS Cloud WAN, and standard VPCs to Google Cloud environments through the AWS console or CLI without specialist interconnect expertise.

If you run workloads on Azure, the timeline to watch is the second half of 2026, when AWS Interconnect – Multicloud is expected to expand to include Azure as a supported provider. That would bring the three dominant hyperscalers into a single interoperability framework.

The Limits Worth Acknowledging

GovCloud regions are not included in the current preview, which rules out federal agencies and contractors with strict sovereignty requirements for now. The service is also still in preview, meaning SLAs and feature completeness are not at general availability standards yet.

Independent multicloud networking platforms also still offer something the AWS-Google solution does not: support across a broader range of clouds simultaneously, plus advanced network segmentation, policy enforcement, and observability capabilities that go beyond point-to-point connectivity.

In the case of enterprises with complex, multi-provider architectures spanning more than two hyperscalers, a purpose-built platform remains the more complete answer.

Author - Jijo George

Jijo is an enthusiastic fresh voice in the blogging world, passionate about exploring and sharing insights on a variety of topics ranging from business to tech. He brings a unique perspective that blends academic knowledge with a curious and open-minded approach to life.