Bedrock, Vertex or build it yourself: The AI infrastructure decision most CIOs get backwards

Across dozens of enterprise procurement reviews, I see technology executives make the same expensive mistake. They start their cloud AI strategy with the wrong question: “Which provider offers the smartest model today?” I sat through a meeting where a client’s leadership team listened to a slick 45-minute vendor pitch highlighting benchmark scores, processing limits and exclusive model access. By the end of the presentation, the executives were ready to sign a multi-year, multi-million-dollar co