Google launches Agent Compute Engine, allocating a hardware-isolated microVM to each Gemini agent
Google announced Agent Compute Engine, which provides each AI agent with an independently isolated virtual machine. The service already powers Gemini and will open in preview over the coming months. Each agent runs in a microVM protected by Google Titanium chips, automatically suspends when idle to free up machines, and shared memory between virtual machines lowers per-machine costs. Google says its open-source Kubernetes runtime Agent Substrate can host ten times as many agents on a single server, and in a test with 200,000 agents, suspend and resume took under 500 milliseconds. It also adds token tracking, model routing, and support for third-party identity providers such as Ping Identity and SailPoint; these controls will extend to Cloud Run, GKE, and managed endpoints.
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The original text provides cost-control details such as microVM isolation, idle suspension, and shared memory, which can be used to assess the engineering trade-offs of deploying agents at scale.
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Google announced Agent Compute Engine, a service that gives each AI agent its own isolated virtual machine. The service already powers Gemini and will open for preview in the coming months. Every agent runs inside a microVM secured by Google's Titanium chip, the company says. When an agent idles, its VM pauses automatically and frees up the machine for others. Shared memory between VMs cuts what each one costs to run. VMs are a pretty huge cost factor when providing agentic systems, so Google is going after efficiency here.
This is also behind the open-sourced Agent Substrate, a Kubernetes runtime. Google says it can fit ten times as many agents on a single server. In a test with 200,000 agents, suspend and resume took less than 500 milliseconds, according to Google. On the oversight side, Google is adding token tracking, model routing, and support for third-party identity providers like Ping Identity and SailPoint. Those controls will extend to Cloud Run, GKE, and managed endpoints.