Google Seals $32 Billion Deal for Cyber Start-Up Wiz

Google has agreed to buy Wiz, a fast-growing cybersecurity start-up, for $32 billion in the company’s biggest push to strengthen its cloud-computing business and expand beyond the search engine and consumer internet services that made it a household name.

The all-cash deal, announced on Tuesday, would be Google’s largest, easily surpassing its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2012.

With the deal, Google would get a five-year-old company that most consumers are unfamiliar with but that a growing number of businesses rely on to protect their cloud applications. The Silicon Valley giant worked for months last year to forge a deal for Wiz, which was most recently valued at $12 billion. In July, Wiz rejected Google’s $23 billion takeover offer, saying it wanted to pursue an initial public offering, but an I.P.O. never came.

The splashy purchase would inject fresh momentum into Google Cloud, the division that sells computing services to other businesses. It would also be the tech giant’s most aggressive effort to keep up with Microsoft, its longtime rival, in cybersecurity.

“Today, businesses and governments that run in the cloud are looking for even stronger security solutions, and greater choice in cloud computing providers,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Together, Google Cloud and Wiz will turbocharge improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.”

But first, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, would have to clear regulatory hurdles.

The deal will test the company’s ability to conduct major acquisitions during protracted antitrust battles with the U.S. government. The Justice Department has sued Google in two separate monopoly cases, one targeting its ubiquitous search engine and another seeking to break up its digital advertising-technology business. A federal judge ruled that the company had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search and will decide on remedies to restore competition by August.