I would wager they're trying to increase their top of the funnel for recruiting. They want people to get these certs, then somebody else to hire them and give

I would wager they're trying to increase their top of the funnel for recruiting. They want people to get these certs, then somebody else to hire them and give them on the job training, and then Google will hire them once they've been in a role for a few years. I actually wouldn't be surprised if this was intended to increase their number of minority candidates. A lot of people have pointed to top of the funnel issues with recruiting diverse candidates (not saying it's true, I'm not in recruiting and don't know). This would offer an avenue for traditionally disadvantaged groups to get something that lets them accrue on the job training, at which point Google can hire them. It helps anybody who is disadvantaged, but Google has been trying to fix their demographics for a while now and failing pretty hard.