Google has released an official software development kit (SDK) that lets developers access Google Cloud services from Swift. With this move, Google is seeking to bring the programming language, best known for applications on Apple platforms, more prominently to the server side.
The new Google Cloud API Client Libraries for Swift are designed for Swift 6.2 and later. Developers can use them to interact with Cloud Storage, AI services, and Identity and Access Management (IAM), among other things, directly from Swift. Google supports more than 100 Google Cloud services.
The SDK is intended for servers, containers, and automated DevOps environments. Applications can be packaged in containers on Linux and then deployed on Cloud Run, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), or virtual machines within Compute Engine. The software also compiles on macOS, allowing developers, for example, to build their backend on a Mac and then run it on Linux.
Swift is set to become a server language
With this move, Google is making a more concerted effort to take Swift beyond its traditional domain. Apple developed the language, and it is primarily associated with apps for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. According to Google, recent changes to Swift now make the language suitable for system software and cloud environments.
A key step in this effort is Swift 6. This version checks for issues during compilation that can arise when different processes access the same data at the same time. As a result, it can detect such data races before software goes into production.
Google combines this with Swift NIO for non-blocking network traffic, HTTP/2, and gRPC. This allows for the processing of large numbers of network connections without using a separate operating system thread for each connection. Web frameworks such as Hummingbird and Vapor can build microservices in Swift.
The SDK can also support platform engineering and DevOps. For example, developers can write command-line tools and scripts in Swift that run both locally and within CI/CD pipelines. For access to Google Cloud, the SDK supports, among other things, Application Default Credentials and Workload Identity Federation.
No SDK for iPhone apps
Notably, Google explicitly warns against embedding the new SDK directly into iOS, iPadOS, or visionOS apps. Including service account keys or other administrative credentials in client software poses security risks. For applications that access Google services directly from Apple devices, Google recommends using Firebase or routing traffic through a custom backend.
The libraries are partially auto-generated from Google Cloud APIs, so new features and changes should be made available consistently. The various clients use the same naming conventions and async/await structure.
A long road to the server
Using Swift as a server-side language is not new. Apple open-sourced the programming language in 2015. A year later, IBM offered Swift through its then-current Bluemix cloud. Initiatives also emerged to make the language more suitable for backend development. Apple’s SwiftNIO framework further boosted that development starting in 2018.
However, a major breakthrough never materialized. IBM scaled back its involvement with Swift in 2019. Amazon also attempted to bring the language to the backend with the Smoke Framework, but there has been little development around it in recent years, according to The Register.
Nor does Swift’s overall popularity indicate a strong rise. According to the TIOBE index, the language reached its highest ranking in early 2020, coming in ninth. Swift now ranks eighteenth on that index. In Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, Swift ranked twentieth.
Google is not the first major cloud provider to attempt to bring Swift to the server. IBM and Amazon preceded the company, but Swift did not become a major backend language. Google’s support gives server-side Swift a new boost, but a breakthrough is by no means guaranteed.