Bedrock, Vertex or build it yourself: The AI infrastructure decision most CIOs get backwards
Across dozens of enterprise procurement reviews, I see technology executives make the same expensive mistake. They start their cloud AI strategy with the wrong question: “Which provider offers the smartest model today?” I sat through a meeting where a client’s leadership team listened to a slick 45-minute vendor pitch highlighting benchmark scores, processing limits and exclusive model access. By the end of the presentation, the executives were ready to sign a multi-year, multi-million-dollar commitment just to secure priority access to that single model. I watched experienced leaders prepare to make a permanent infrastructure commitment based entirely on a temporary technological lead. Signing a long-term contract based on a six-month feature advantage treats a rapidly commoditizing utility service as a permanent asset, while surrendering control over the true intellectual property of your business. The central strategic axiom Raw computational intelligence is a rented utility overhea