The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has selected Google Cloud as the primary provider of high-performance computing infrastructure for its Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System.
The agreement represents a major shift from traditional on-premises supercomputers toward a cloud-first operating model. NOAA will become one of the first operational numerical weather prediction centers to move its primary forecasting infrastructure to the public cloud.
Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models to simulate atmospheric conditions and forecast how weather systems may develop. These models require large amounts of computing power because they process extensive information involving temperature, pressure, wind, moisture and other environmental conditions.
Google Cloud H4D virtual machines powered by fifth-generation AMD EPYC processors will provide the primary computing foundation for the system.
The H4D infrastructure is designed for tightly connected scientific workloads in which many processors must exchange information with very little delay. This allows large weather simulations to operate as a coordinated computing system rather than as separate machines working independently.
Moving WCOSS to the cloud is expected to give NOAA greater flexibility when adopting future forecasting models and increasing computing capacity. Meteorologists and researchers will be able to adjust infrastructure as scientific requirements change without depending entirely on fixed physical systems.
The selection builds on a long-term relationship between NOAA and Google Cloud. Previous projects have involved sharing large environmental datasets, monitoring wildfires, supporting marine conservation and transitioning NOAA employees to Google Workspace.
NOAA Fisheries has also tested cloud-based computing for scientific work, while NOAA has used the WeatherNext model developed by Google DeepMind and Google Research for hurricane forecasting. The agency is also exploring agentic AI applications through Gemini for Government.
Google Cloud believes combining its infrastructure with NOAA’s scientific expertise could improve forecasting speed and accuracy while strengthening public safety and the United States’ position in global weather modeling.
