Google technical infrastructure head Urs Holzle is stepping down

Urs Holzle, Google LLC’s senior vice president of technical infrastructure, is stepping down. 

CNBC reported the development this morning, citing internal company memos. The memos, which were penned by Holzle and Google Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian, also detailed two other changes to the search giant’s technical leadership team. The company confirmed the changes in a statement.

Holzle joined Google as its eighth employee in 1999 after a stint as an assistant professor of computer science at UC Santa Barbara. During the initial leg of his Google career, the executive focused primarily on the company’s then-nascent search engine. He later became vice president of search and eventually moved to his current role at the helm of Google’s technical infrastructure group.

During Holzle’s tenure, Google built one of the industry’s most expansive data center networks. Its cloud business operates 37 regions, or data center clusters, around the world. Each such region includes multiple cloud facilities. 

The company’s network of data centers is not only one of the largest in the industry but also among the most efficient. According to Google, its cloud facilities operate with twice the energy-efficiency of a typical enterprise data center. Compared with five years ago, the company’s infrastructure delivers five times more than compute per watt.

The efficiency of Google’s infrastructure is partly the result of the custom hardware development initiatives it launched during Holzle’s tenure. The company designs custom servers for its data centers. It also develops network switches and other pieces of equipment, as well as more foundational components such as artificial intelligence chips.

After giving up the reins at Google’s technical infrastructure group, Holzle will move into an “individual contributor” role. According to CNBC, the executive will no longer manage technical teams. He is instead expected to work on a “limited number of technical assignments” and advice Google about topics such as artificial intelligence development. 

Holzle detailed his role change in a memo to the search giant’s employees. In a separate internal memo, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian divulged two other changes to the company’s technical leadership team.

Ben Treynor Sloss, the vice president of engineering at Google Cloud, will report directly to Kurian going forward. Additionally, the search giant has hired former Amazon Web Services Inc. executive Chris Vonderhaar to lead its cloud supply chain and operations group. Vonderhaar left AWS earlier this year after leading its sprawling data center network for four and a half years.

The leadership reshuffle comes three months after another major change at Google’s engineering and research organization. The company merged its two main AI units, DeepMind and Google Brain, into a single group. The new group is led by DeepMind co-founder CEO Demis Hassabis.

Photo: Naoise Culhane / Wikimedia