Google Cloud Platform is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure Google uses for its own products. It allows customers to access computing resources in Google's data centers worldwide for free or on a pay-per-use basis. GCP has millions of customers worldwide and offers various products and APIs that can be accessed through libraries or directly through REST and RPC APIs. Application Programming Interfaces like Cloud Vision API and Distance Matrix API allow developers to integrate features like image labeling, text detection, and travel distance/time calculations into their applications.