Google Cloud previews OpenAI GPT-6 models and makes Anthropic-managed Claude GA

Google Cloud has turned Model Garden into a neutral marketplace for its two biggest model rivals. OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Luna are now in private preview. Anthropic-managed Claude deployments, covering Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Haiku 5.5 and Fable 5.1, are generally available.

The 'Anthropic-managed' detail matters. Rather than Google re-hosting the weights, Anthropic operates the deployments within Google Cloud. Customers keep Google billing, IAM and data residency while Anthropic controls model updates. GPT-6 availability on Google marks a further loosening of OpenAI's once-exclusive Azure ties.

The competitive picture is now multi-vendor everywhere. AWS Bedrock and Azure Foundry both carry rival models, and enterprises such as Samsung are deploying Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude side by side. Distribution is converging, so differentiation shifts to price, capacity and agent tooling.

Pichai's caveat ties this to the week's theme. Google, like AWS and Microsoft, expects compute shortages into 2027. Preview access may therefore be rate-limited, and GA quotas will be worth checking before production commitments.