GP and you aren't using the same definition of cloud. By cloud, they mean infrastuctures like AWS/GCP/Azure, not simple VM hosting (called VPS outside "clouds", and compute nodes in "clouds")
What's the definition of "cloud" then which excludes VPS from the umbrella of services offered in cloud? Not really sure how a VPS is any different from a Google Compute Engine
I think the main difference is the pricing structure. Usually "cloud" refers to the auto-scaling servers with the pay-as-you go pricing, while VPSs are usually manually instantiated and have a fixed monthly cost. Also, sometimes with VPSs you get more control over the server's settings than with "cloud" services.
So "cloud" is like renting a dynamically changing number of VPSs each month and which are usually more costly if your consumption is not spiky (eg. when a cheap VPS rented 24/7 is enough).