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The September 19th GCP Tech Share explored the highs and lows of Google Cloud adoption in higher education, from billing headaches to cutting-edge AI projects. Here's what you need to know:

GCP Experience: The Good and the Bad

The session kicked off with a discussion led by a business student from Indiana University, part of a project where Bob Flynn from Internet2 is collaborating with IU students to analyze and quantify barriers to adoption for GCP users within the research and education community. This open dialogue revealed both strengths and challenges:

Institutions praised GCP's tech support and documentation, with Pennsylvania State University highlighting positive experiences. However, challenges emerged:

  • Northwestern University reported difficulties with Apigee support post-acquisition. Google seems to take a long time to fully integrate the products they acquire.
  • Washington University in St. Louis cited billing as their "biggest headache," especially with third-party resellers. Better communication about charges for non-GCP Google services is needed..

To mitigate some of these issues, Washington University suggested restricting Google project creation. Google's representative assured the group that teams are working to improve integration of acquired products and enhance user experience.

RIT Pitch and Innovative Ideas

The meeting continued discussions on the Google Public Sector Rapid Innovation Team (RIT) initiative, introduced during the August 20 GCP Strat Call (recording and assets). This program offers institutions the chance to collaborate with Google on innovative prototypes for higher education challenges.

For more details, see the blog post "Google's Rapid Innovation Team Seeks Ideas from Internet2 NET+ GCP Community".

Here are a few of the potential proposals that were discussed during the call:

  1. An AI-powered app for personalized GCP training suggestions (Internet2).
  2. An app recommending GCP solutions for researchers based on current tools (Pennsylvania State University).
  3. A tool for assessing per-user GCP cost estimates (Pennsylvania State University).

These ideas will be presented at the September 24 pitch session, with selected projects working with Google's RIT in 6-week sprints.

Cutting-Edge Projects and AI Advancements

The discussion then shifted to showcase the innovative work being done across institutions, highlighting the practical applications of GCP and AI in academic settings. Below are some of the GCP and AI projects shared by participants on the call:

  • Washington University in St. Louis (WashU): Testing LLM deployment across cloud providers and developing a medical voice-to-text app.
  • An AI tool for predicting cancer therapy responses was highlighted by Steven from WashU.
  • Tim from Internet2 talked about his testing of Google's speech generation tools:
  • Jeff from Google highlighted the AlphaProteo project, which generates novel proteins for biological research.

Conclusion

The September GCP Tech Share revealed both the value and challenges we all face with GCP in higher education. While administrative issues, billing and integration can hamper adoptions, innovative projects and AI advancements demonstrate GCP's potential in advancing research and education. As the academic community leverages these tools, we anticipate groundbreaking applications in cloud computing and AI. We invite you to join us at next month’s NET+ GCP Tech Share on October 17.

Be sure to check out the other blog posts we've written. As always, feel free to send any feedback to tmanik[at]internet2[dot]edu.