Apple relies heavily on Google Cloud Storage and is the largest corporate customer with 8 exabytes of storage

Apple has been using the Google Cloud Storage platform for years, though the latest report says that the Cupertino-based giant's spending has surged over the last year. A new report claims that Apple is close to spending 50 per cent more than it did in 2020 on Google Cloud Storage and currently has over 8 exabytes of storage.

The Information in its latest report adds that Apple is now the largest corporate customer of Google cloud services, following ByteDance and Spotify. The report adds that the company is on track to spend close to $300 million on Google cloud storage in 2021. It compares the spending to 2020 and adds that the spending is about 50 per cent more than what Apple spent on all of 2020.

The increase in cloud storage spending is apparent considering Apple now has more Cloud-based services, including the popular iCloud for multimedia data. While there's no denying that Apple has its own data centres for cloud services, it also relies on services like Google Cloud Storage for storing user data.

Breaking up the surge in demand, the report claims that Apple in November 2020 increased the amount of user data stored on the Google Cloud Platform by around 470 petabytes.

The report also claims that Google codenames Apple as Bigfoot because of the company's massive data storage. The good thing here is, all personal data stored on the Google Cloud Storage platform is encrypted with special security keys exclusively with Apple. The report adds that while Apple can establish its own infrastructure to handle enormous cloud storage demands, it cannot sync the deployment of its cloud service with the speed at which cloud storage demands are rising.

The surge in spending on Google cloud service doesn't come as a surprising move, as Apple in 2018 confirmed that it used Google cloud services as a third-party service to store iCloud user data.

The new report about rising cloud storage demands for Apple comes around the launch of iCloud+, which was announced earlier this month during the WWDC keynote as a privacy-focused feature. Announced as an update to iCloud, iCloud+ will be available at the same monthly subscription price as iCloud and offers features like Private Relay, which doesn't let anyone track browsing history. There's also Hide my email launched as part of the iCloud+ bundle along with HomeKit Secure Video.