Due to the Global Epidemic, Google Temporarily Canceled the Cloud Next Offline Conference

The COVID-19 outbreak is spreading rapidly around the world and has affected many countries. The technology industry has also been inevitably impacted, and many annual technology summits have been forced to cancel, postpone, or move online. On March 2, Google announced that it had decided to move the Google Cloud Next'20 conference online.

Google announced on March 2 local time that due to concerns about the current COVID-19 epidemic,The company will cancel the offline event of Google Cloud Next, the Google Cloud Service Technology Summit, and move it online.The meeting will be live-streamed and participants are required to watch the meeting online.

The 10,000-person conference moved online

Google Cloud Next was originally scheduled to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from April 6 to 8. The conference is an industry event with Google Cloud business as its theme, attracting tens of thousands of developers from all over the world to attend.

Last year, the conference had more than 30,000 attendees.It can be said to be on par with the programmers’ Spring Festival Gala – Google I/O Conference. The famous AI chip TPU series was released at the Next Conference.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, many participants had to attend this event online this year.

A Google Cloud spokesperson said in a statement: "The health and well-being of Google Cloud partners, customers, employees, and the entire community is our top priority. Due to the growing concern about the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in order to align with the best practices put forward by the CDC, WHO, and other relevant entities, Google Cloud has decided to reimagine Google Cloud Next '20, but the event dates remain unchanged and will still be held from April 6 to 8."

According to the introduction,The virtual conference will be a free, global, digital-first, multi-day event.Attendees will be connected to Next'20 content through streaming keynotes, breakout sessions, interactive learning, digital technology, and "Ask the Experts" activities.

Google also noted in the announcement: "Innovation is in Google's DNA, and we're taking advantage of that to bring you an immersive, inspiring event this year without the risk of travel."

In addition, Google will automatically refund all participants' event fees and hotel accommodation expenses, and attendees who have already planned to travel to the site can avoid financial losses caused by changes in conference plans.

Regarding this change, some netizens think that this is a wise move. For example, engineer Kartik said that this is also environmentally friendly.

In addition, the annual Google I/O conference is currently scheduled to be held in Mountain View from May 12th to 14th, but whether it can be held smoothly at that time remains to be seen.

Several technology summits were forced to change

Google is not the only tech company to postpone, change or cancel major events due to the epidemic.

 March 22 GTC: Nvidia's annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) attracts tens of thousands of participants every year. This year's conference was originally scheduled to be held in San Jose, California on March 22, but due to the impact of the epidemic, it was announced on Monday that the conference would be moved online. Those who have already registered for the conference can currently receive a full refund.

 MWC, February 24-27: As early as February 13, the MWC 2020 (Mobile World Congress) originally scheduled to be held from February 24 to 27 was cancelled due to the withdrawal of many companies after the outbreak of the new coronavirus.

 May 5-6 F8:On February 27, Facebook said it had canceled its annual F8 software developer conference due to concerns about the impact of the new coronavirus. The annual conference was originally scheduled for May 5-6 at the McAnally Convention Center in San Jose.

 March 16-20 GDC: On February 28, the Game Developers Conference (GDC), originally scheduled to be held in San Francisco from March 16 to 20, was postponed to later this summer. The reason is that Sony, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, Amazon and other companies that originally planned to attend the conference have canceled their plans to attend due to the impact of the new coronavirus.

In addition to the impact on such large-scale events, under the current situation, many technology industry companies have also begun to restrict employee travel and promote remote work policies.

Recently, an employee of Google's office in Zurich, Switzerland has been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, and the company immediately restricted employees from traveling to countries such as Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea.

On Sunday evening, Amazon also said that its employees in Italy had been infected with the new coronavirus and had been quarantined.

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