Flare, the blockchain for data, today announced the addition of Google Cloud as an infrastructure provider, acting as both a network validator and contributor to the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) on the Flare network.

As a network validator, Google Cloud will be responsible for proposing and validating new blocks to the Flare blockchain, thereby supporting the chain’s proof of stake consensus mechanism. Google Cloud will be one of 100 organizations adopting the new combined role of validator and contributor to the FTSO on Flare. These 100 Flare infrastructure providers will support both the security of the Flare network as a validator and contributor to Flare’s highly-decentralized price oracle, the FTSO with publicly available pricing data.

The infrastructure provider role is critical for Flare’s mission to provide decentralized applications on both Flare and other chains with high quality access to decentralized data: price and time series data, blockchain event and state data, and Web2 API data.

Flare brings together low cost EVM smart contracts with decentralized data, and aims to give developers and users trustless access to the broadest range of data, with scalability, low latency, and at minimum cost. This is achieved by utilizing the validators of the network to provide decentralized data to applications as part of a decentralized native oracle system.

In this way, Flare expands the utility of blockchain, providing developers with the volume and variety of decentralized data they need to build use cases that lead to great blockchain adoption. Trust minimizing bridging technology for smart contract and non-smart contract assets, being built by sister company Flare Labs, can then provide decentralized applications built on Flare with access to external tokens. This brings new users and value to Flare as part of a vertically integrated blockchain for data.

Hugo Philion, Co-Founder and CEO of Flare, commented on how Google Cloud’s addition aligns with Flare’s vision: “As the blockchain for data, we are excited that Google Cloud is joining our existing decentralized network of infrastructure providers who contribute to Flare. Our work together will help deliver a more robust decentralized smart contract platform that places decentralized data at its core.”

“Although much of the existing utility in the blockchain space comes from the nexus of decentralized computation with external data, existing oracle systems suffer from meaningful drawbacks: they are hard to decentralize, expensive to use, difficult to scale and have high latency.” Philion said about the challenges of the decentralization of data access, before explaining how Flare’s dual-role approach addresses the issue:

“Because Flare’s oracles are built into the structure of the network, we are the only smart contract platform optimized for decentralized data acquisition and are able to give developers all the data they need to build new, more relevant use cases beyond financial speculation.”

James Tromans, Head of Web3, Google Cloud stated: “Data access at scale is important to increase relevant blockchain use cases and greater global adoption of the technology. Google Cloud becoming a validator on the Flare network will help support that mission.”

Flare has also become a part of the Google for Startups Cloud Program designed to accelerate the growth of Web3 startups, giving developers on Flare access to financial and technical support from Google Cloud and partners.