NOAA’s Huge Data, Cloud Migration to Google Sets Up AI Plans
Executive Summary
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is betting that a move to the cloud as well as a healthy dose of AI will enable it to distribute its weather and forecasting data faster. First, NOAA is looking to wrangle data, speed up research, and process information wherever it is stored.
Dr. Neil Jacobs, undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA administrator, spoke at Google Public Sector Summit 2026 and outlined how NOAA is tackling its current challenges. NOAA named Google its primary provider of high-performance computing infrastructure for its Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS).
Under the partnership, NOAA is moving its operational Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) supercomputer from on-prem to Google. The timeline will run from early 2027 and be completed in December 2027. NOAA will also use Google DeepMind models and Google machine learning tools as well as big data services such as BigQuery storage and Google Earth Engine.
