Citing the need for increased cybersecurity capabilities as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into technology infrastructure, Google announced on Tuesday that it will pay $32 billion to purchase cloud security platform Wiz.
With the all-cash transaction, Wiz joins Google Cloud, increasing users’ ability to use “multiple clouds” and offering “an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era,” according to a joint statement from the businesses.
The deepening influence of AI makes “cybersecurity increasingly important in defending against emergent risks and protecting national security,” they added.
The transaction, the largest ever sought by Google or parent Alphabet, will test US President Donald Trump’s openness to large takeovers after resistance to such deals by the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden.
Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport told staff members in a statement that when the previous deal fell through, Alphabet was on the verge of acquiring Wiz last summer, but company executives decided to remain independent at the moment with an eye toward an IPO.
Wiz, which was founded in 2020 by Rappaport, an Israeli, and a group that had sold a prior business to Microsoft, is headquartered in New York and has operations in three additional US cities as well as Tel Aviv.
In a webcast after the deal was announced, Rappaport said the service “continuously scans an organization’s code and cloud environments, monitoring them in real time,” allowing it to “prioritize the most critical risk based on real impact and (block) active threats.”
After the deal closes, Wiz will operate as a Google company that still provides services to other tech giants including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, making it like the operation of Mandiant, another cybersecurity company Google acquired three years ago, said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.
“With Wiz, we believe we will vastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated, providing an end-to-end security platform for customers to prevent, detect and respond to incidents across all major clouds,” Kurian said.
Google’s cloud business has grown significantly over the last decade, garnering more than $43 billion in revenue in 2024, up nearly 31 percent from the prior year.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the Google-Wiz deal could be the first of many with the departure of Lina Khan, the Biden-era head of the Federal Trade Commission, who was considered hostile to tech industry consolidation.
“While the merger & acquisition environment has been extremely quiet to start the year, we believe that this acquisition will open the door to a massive wave of M&A across the tech landscape,” Ives said in a note.
“As more cloud operators look to secure their cloud portfolios while more cyber names look to capitalize on their all-in-one platform approaches by scooping up undervalued companies and improving their offerings,” Ives stated, the cybersecurity sector is particularly well-suited.
However, Briefing.com asserted that the Trump administration’s action to prevent Hewlett Packard from acquiring Juniper Networks is proof of Trump’s “potentially tougher stance on Big Tech M&A than the markets may have thought,” characterizing Google’s bid for Wiz as reasonable.
Adding Wiz would “immediately make Google a meaningful contender in the cybersecurity market,” Briefing.com said.
Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell 2.3 percent in afternoon trading.
