Google Cloud has completed the acquisition of Looker, a company that specialises in data analytics and machine learning. The purchase involves $ 2.6 billion.

The deal was announced in June 2019, but in December of last year the competition watchdog of the United Kingdom, the Competition and Markets Authority, started an investigation.

Among other things, the CMA wanted to know whether the fusion would lead to higher prices or more mediocre quality but indicates that Google is still getting competition from other tech giants in this area, including Microsoft, SAP and IBM.

Looker makes business intelligence software at the enterprise level. Among other things, it builds dashboards for web and sales analysis and digital marketing.

With the purchase, Google Cloud seems to be catching up with Amazon Web Services. That cloud player had a market share of around 32 percent in 2019, in a vast and still growing market.

Second is Microsoft Azure, with approximately 17 percent. Google Cloud tries to connect with this. Last year it had a market share of around six percent, a doubling compared to a year earlier, according to research firm Canalys.

It is one of the most significant purchases from Google in recent history, and the first significant purchase for new Google Cloud boss Thomas Kurian. The previous substantial investment dates from the beginning of 2019 when the tech giant took over wearables company Fitbit for 2.1 billion dollars.