Google Has A Huge Edge Over OpenAI, Microsoft, Says Cloudflare CEO- And It All Comes Down To Data: 'Whoever Has The Most...Wins'

Cloudflare Inc. (NYSE:NET) co-founder and CEO and Matthew Prince said in a recent interview that Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), allows its web crawlers to access significantly more data than competitors amid debates over AI training limits.

Google’s Data Access Advantage

Prince, while speaking with John Coogan and Jordi Hays on a TBPN podcast released on Friday, disclosed that Googlebot sees 3.2 times more web pages than OpenAI.

“For every one page that OpenAI sees, Google is seeing 3.2 pages,” Prince said.

Google sees 4.8 times more of the web than Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), according to Prince. Anthropic Inc. sees similar levels to Microsoft, with access dropping off further for other AI companies.

Search Dominance Enables Privileged Access

Prince credits Google's search position for allowing it unique access to data.

“Everyone has let them behind their paywall. Everyone has let them see parts of the internet that no one else sees,” Prince stated.

He cited robot.txt restrictions showing Google maintains privileged access across significant portions of the internet.

Data Determines AI Race Winner

The executive of the global network and security company noted companies face data limitations affecting their AI performance. “Whoever has the most data wins in the era of AI,” Prince said.

He also said Alphabet's Gemini continues to outperform competitors, attributing the advantage to its data access rather than chips or personnel. Prince suggested either limiting Google's search leverage for AI or giving competitors the same level of data access.

The comments from Prince come amid growing scrutiny of big tech’s AI infrastructure costs.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.