Google LLC is forming a new division that will focus on helping public sector organizations use its cloud services.

The move was announced today by Google Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian. According to Kurian, the division will work with federal, state and local governments, as well as educational institutions.

The new division is known as Google Public Sector. It will have its own board of directors and is set to be led by senior executives from the search giant’s public cloud business. 

Will Grannis, who heads Google Cloud’s Office of the CTO, has been appointed as chief executive officer of Google Public Sector. Grannis will lead the division until a permanent CEO is named. Lynn Martin, the vice president of Google Cloud’s North America Public Sector unit, will lead the division’s go-to-market organization.

Google Public Sector will focus on helping customers adopt the search giant’s public cloud platform and its Google Workplace productivity suite. “Google Public Sector will provide a full complement of business functions and capabilities, including specialized sales, customer engineering, customer success and services, customer support, channel and partner programs, compliance and security operations,” Kurian detailed.

Google Public Sector’s focus areas will encompass, among other tasks, helping public sector customers use the search giant’s cybersecurity products. Kurian listed artificial intelligence as another priority. Google also plans to continue an existing initiative that focuses on training public sector employees in using cloud services.

Google has a significant presence in the public sector. The search giant counts the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Energy and several other government departments as customers, along with agencies such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Google’s cloud division also works with numerous state and city governments to support their technology initiatives.

As part of its efforts to grow its public sector business, Google has been working to obtain more cybersecurity certifications. The company last year achieved FedRAMP High authorization for Google Workspace. As a result, government agencies can now leverage the productivity suite for a wider variety of use cases.

Google last year also obtained Impact Level 4 authorization for its cloud data centers in the U.S. Thanks to the authorization, organizations can use its cloud platform to store and process controlled unclassified information.

“We believe Google Public Sector can and will play a critical role in applying cloud technology to solve complex problems for our nation — across U.S. federal, state, and local governments, and educational institutions,” Kurian wrote. 

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