The I/O developer conference is not only Google’s biggest event of the year, it is also a big tech event for developers and partners.

Google has cancelled its I/O developer conference, its biggest event of the year, in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The Google I/O 2020 was scheduled to take place between May 12 to May 14 at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. It isn’t immediately clear if Google will be hosting an online-only event to make some of the announcements it was supposed to make on-ground at I/O 2020.

The I/O developer conference is not only Google’s biggest event of the year, it is also a big tech event for developers and partners. As well as for tech enthusiasts invested into the whole Android ecosystem. For years now, Google has taken to I/O to talk all things software (and some hardware), the sort of things that would set the tone for the rest of the year.

Although Google has started dropping previews of its next major Android iteration – which is Android 11 this year – early off late, it’s only at I/O we get to hear a lot more about it. Also, Google takes I/O keynotes to talk about the future of its core Google apps from Google Assistant to Google Maps, including updates that it has been working on. There have also been some hardware announcements at I/O. The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL, for instance, were officially launched at I/O 2019.

It’s a high-profile event the tech industry looks up to every year but it’s good to see Google being safe now rather than sorry later. It’s actually the second event that Google has cancelled in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Google has already scrapped its Cloud Next on-ground event in San Francisco – it will instead host it online.

Google has announced that it will provide a full refund to all I/O 2020 attendees by March 13.

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