Alphabet’s Google announced it invested $1 billion in CME Group, a leading derivatives marketplace, as part of its 10-year Cloud deal.
The Chicago-based exchange operator will begin moving its technology infrastructure to Google Cloud next year.
“CME Group has a century-long track record of helping investors access new markets and is known for innovation in financial markets,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “Bringing together CME Group’s financial talent with Google Cloud’s engineering expertise will help accelerate technological innovation in capital markets infrastructure.”
CME Group has appointed Ken Vroman to a new role as Chief Transformation Officer to help facilitate the cloud migration.
Google’s cloud business competes against Amazon.com and Microsoft for large, lucrative contracts from blue-chip Fortune 500 companies. Google’s cloud is the third largest Cloud service provider far behind as compared with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
The deal gives Google a foothold in the financial services sector, which is starting to invest big money on cloud computing services.
Google’s $1 billion equity investment was in the form of non-voting convertible preferred stock of CME, the companies said.
The partnership with Google Cloud would help CME provide access for more market participants, optimize costs and streamline IT infrastructure and other operations.
Last year, Amazon and two stock exchanges – Singapore Exchange SGX and London-based Aquis Exchange – undertook a pilot program which they said showed moving share trading to cloud computing from costly physical servers could save money and reduce the potential for outages.
