Google hires Intel's former data center chief Diane Bryant

Google is hiring former Intel executive Diane Bryant to serve as chief operating officer of Google Cloud, the company announced Thursday.

With more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, Bryant most recently served as head of Intel's Data Center Group. After leading the group for five years, she took a leave of absence earlier this year. Intel's Data Center Group has played an increasingly important role for the chipmaker, generating $17 billion in revenue in 2016. As Google Cloud SVP Diane Greene noted in a blog post, Bryant helped expand Intel's Data Center business to focus on areas like pervasive cloud computing, network virtualization, and artificial intelligence. Before heading up the Data Center Group, Bryant was Intel's CIO for four years.

Now that Google has established a cloud business with competitive features to keep Amazon Web Services on its toes, Google could benefit from the experience of executives like Bryant who can help the company reach more CIOs and expand its enterprise sales.

"Diane's strategic acumen, technical knowledge and client focus will prove invaluable as we accelerate the scale and reach of Google Cloud," Greene wrote.

Third quarter data from research firm Canalys showed that Google is growing its cloud business faster than market-leading AWS but not as quickly as Microsoft.

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