SAN FRANCISCO -- It was previously rumored that Google would be introducing an enterprise cloud service during Google I/O this week, and the Internet giant responded during Thursday's keynote.

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Urs Holzle, senior vice president of Google's technical Infrastructure unit, introduced the Google Compute Engine, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform with multiple storage options, promising "great connectivity to end users."

Holzle said that anyone with large-scale computing needs can access this compute infrastructure with virtual machines.

"This infrastructure comes with scale performance and value unparalleled in the industry," Holzle boasted, touting that customers will benefit from Google data centers and its decade of experience in running them.

"Our virtual machines and storage are predictably fast so you can run on a consistent level of performance," Holzle said.

He added that Compute Engine delivers up to 50 percent more compute per dollar than other cloud providers.

"We worked hard for a decade to lower the cost of computing, and we're passing these savings on to you," Holzle said to roar of applause from the developers in the audience.

Although he also mentioned that Google can scale much higher for intensive computations, noting the hundreds of thousands of cores available to individual apps, he didn't cite any numbers about financial cost savings.

Google Compute Engine is now open in limited preview availability.

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