Google LLC today said it has forged a five-year deal to provide the U.S. Department of Energy access to a “broad range” of Google Cloud technologies, on top of another deal to have 22,000 state of Virginia employees use the newly rebranded Google Workspace tools formerly known as G Suite.

The deals are more big customer wins for Google Cloud. They come just a day after the telecommunications giant Nokia Corp. said it was moving its entire information technology infrastructure to Google Cloud.

The DOE deal, the value of which was not disclosed, includes the Google Cloud Platform and its Workspace productivity tools across DOE national labs and field sites. According to Google, it will make it easier for DOE’s more than 100,000 employees and contractors to access the tools, including Google Cloud Storage, BigQuery, AutoML, Cloud GPUs and TPUs, Google Kubernetes Engine and TensorFlow.

The DOE said it will use the tools for uses such as machine learning models to predict which energy equipment will require preventative maintenance, helping cities identify more cost-efficient renewable energy sources and managing data from DOE research facilities.

“Our work with Google Cloud is helping us reduce the friction and pivot to innovation,” Chief Information Officer for the U.S. DOE Rocky Campione said in a statement.

Also today, the state of West Virginia said today it has agreed a multiyear deal in which 22,000 of its employees will use Google Workspace, the productivity suite formerly known as G Suite.

Google announced the launch of Google Workspace last week, saying it wanted to bring the entire G Suite portfolio of cloud-based tools for messaging, meetings, docs and tasks into one place to better enable remote working. The idea behind Google Workspace is that having multiple collaboration tools in one space will reduce “context switching,” meaning a worker does not need to move away from anything in order to get work done. That means core tools are at the ready at a moment’s notice and become available in context.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said the state’s transition to Google Workspace would lead to projected cost savings of around $11.5 million.

“This collaboration is truly going to allow us to serve the people of this state better than ever, and the people should be proud of the fact that we got a great deal and will be saving millions and millions of dollars in the process,” Justice said. “It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity for us to be able to work with a tech giant like Google. This is another example of how the best of the best companies are seeing all the goodness we’re building in West Virginia and want to be a part of our momentum.”

Google said its newly rebranded productivity and collaboration tools will also make it easier for state employees to work remotely and securely amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because Google Workspace offers advanced video meeting capabilities that enable meetings of up to 250 participants at once, integrated with its existing productivity tools. Moreover, critical state data will be safeguarded too, thanks to Google Workspace’s built-in data loss prevention tools and access control policies based on its BeyondCorp zero-trust security model.

“Google Cloud is committed to our partnership with West Virginia, and we look forward to helping them transition to a flexible, secure, and innovative way of working, collaborating and serving constituents,” said Mike Daniels, vice president for Global Public Sector at Google Cloud.

West Virginia joins other state governments, including Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming, in adopting Google Workspace.

Image: Google