You created a new project that will use Cloud Spanner for a globally distributed application. What is the first step to prepare for creating a Cloud Spanner instance?

To use any Google Cloud service, including Cloud Spanner, you must first enable its corresponding API within your project. This makes the service available for use and allows you to provision resources. Without enabling the API, you cannot proceed with creating a Cloud Spanner instance or interacting with the service programmatically. Configuring the instance as multi-regional is a step after the API is enabled and you are creating the instance. Creating a VPC network is also a subsequent step, often for network isolation or connectivity, not the absolute first step for service enablement. Granting yourself an IAM role is for permissions management, which is important but comes after the API is enabled and before or during resource creation.