It's an open source project that is developed by Google(not funded by). It's used on their Google hub smart devices. They had layoff in the department but until they decide to discontinue their smart devices then they will continue active development of this.

Is it necessarily tied to smart devices? I always wondered if it was also partially desired by Google for displacing Linux in some roles inside their data centers. In any case, they are still landing hundreds of changes per day, so it doesn't even resemble a dead project.

There is nothing tying it to their smart devices. It's maybe that they just choose to use it here first or here publicly. Who is to say it isn't used internally and they just haven't said as yet?