Which Google Cloud service provides serverless compute for running code in response to events without managing servers?

Correct answer: Cloud Functions

Option A is correct because Cloud Functions is Google Cloud's fully managed, event-driven, serverless compute service that automatically scales to zero and runs individual functions in response to HTTP requests, Pub/Sub messages, Cloud Storage events, and other triggers, with no server provisioning required. Option B, Google Kubernetes Engine, is a managed container orchestration platform that requires cluster configuration and node management, making it far from serverless. Option C, Cloud Run, is also serverless but is designed to run containerized applications rather than individual event-driven functions, representing a higher level of abstraction than a single function. Option D, Google Compute Engine, is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering of virtual machines that requires full server management, patching, and configuration.