Google was one of the founding members for OpenPOWER. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation

The large providers are always looking around, it would be silly not to.

POWER is vulnerable to Spectre. I’m trying to get definitive confirmation that it’s affected by Meltdown (firmware notes say yes)

I was coming at it more from a "having alternatives is good" comment instead of saying it's not vulnerable to the new problems. The specs look interesting enough to benchmark on, and perhaps if it actually does perform better, then even with patches it will stand out.

For those who are curious about POWER, here is the firmware link for a 880.

https://download4.boulder.ibm.com/sar/CMA/SFA/07d79/0/01SC86...

In response to recently reported security vulnerabilities, this firmware update is being released to address Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures issue numbers CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754. Operating System updates are required in conjunction with this FW level for CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5754