Summary
Google announced a parternship with Chainlink to build hybrid blockchain/cloud applications utilizing the Ethereum blockchain. The blog posted by Google describes that the team is working on applications of making internet-hosted data available inside an immutable public blockchain: placing BigQuery data on-chain using a Chainlink oracle smart contract.
BigQuery allows large swathes of data from multiple blockchains to be correlated and analyzed. The datasets have been used to develop processes such as profit sharing, characterizing network participants, and detecting software vulnerabilities and malware.
Chainlink will act as the "middleware" between smart contracts and Google's real-world data, and provide a secure on and off ramp for the outside information they need. At a high level, Ethereum Dapps request data from Chainlink, which in turn retrieves data from a web service built with Google App Engine and BigQuery.
Chainlink partenering with Google opens up the gate for innumerable applications.