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With that, Kurian officially started Google Cloud Next, with confetti cannons heralding the official start of the event.

“If tonight’s event sets the tone for what we plan to bring you for the next three days, I think it’s safe to say it’s going to be an incredible week,” he said.

Kurian will be back onstage bright and early tomorrow morning at the opening keynote ‘The new way to cloud’. We’ll be bringing you all the updates from that and throughout the conference, both here and across ITPro so stay right here for all the very latest.

In the meantime, why not read my pre-conference analysis of what Google Cloud can do to set itself apart from competitors at this event and the key story it needs to tell.

Next, it was time to hear from Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud, and James Dolan, CEO at Sphere Entertainment, on the challenges of bringing The Wizard of Oz to the Sphere.

“I’ve been running companies for 40 years and this is one of the first times I ever felt that I wasn’t a customer – I was a partner,” said Dolan, praising the hands-on collaboration of the Google Cloud, Google DeepMind, and Magnopus teams.

After Pichai’s speech, we were treated to an extended video showing the behind the scenes of the project. It included detail on how difficult it is to extend existing video footage to fit the Sphere’s unique aspect ratio and resolution, as well as the complexity of generating entirely new footage of characters when they would otherwise have been offscreen.

Engineers had to work iteratively and study the original plans for the film to recreate the characters without making them generic.

The final project includes special effects such as wind which is blown on the audience and haptic rumbling under the seats – of which we were given a very interactive example.

After entering the Sphere’s cavernous arena, we were treated to an opening speech by Sundar Pichai, CEO at Google. He played tribute to the efforts of all the engineers and creatives who worked on the project, which required intense research and overcoming numerous technological hurdles. Ultimately, it was created using Google DeepMind’s video generation model Veo 2.

“We have seen significant improvements: super low latency, incredible video quality, multimodal output, so many things we couldn’t have done with AI even 12 months ago,” Pichai said.

“Beyond the technical capability, it took a whole lot of imagination, creativity, and collaboration. Our goal: giving Dorothy, Toto, and all of these iconic characters new life on a 16k screen in super resolution.”

Good evening from Las Vegas, where choice attendees from the event have just been treated to a sneak peek of a brand new attraction opening at the Sphere in August – The Wizard of Oz at Sphere.

Made in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, Google Cloud, and Magnopus, the finished product will run as a multi-sensory, 16k recreation of the original 1939 movie for the Sphere’s 160,000-square-foot screen using Google DeepMind’s video generation models.