McDonald’s and Google announced a multi-year global partnership to leverage Google Cloud technology in its restaurants, with a specific focus on generating artificial intelligence and edge use cases.
The agreement will bring updates to every aspect of McDonald’s restaurants and customer platforms, from the company’s mobile apps to self-service kiosks. Edge computing capabilities will be used to gain new insights into device performance, while in generating artificial intelligence, a dedicated Google Cloud team will work with McDonald’s Global Innovation Center to “deliver exciting new experiences for employees and customers.”
The main product cited by Google is Google Distributed Cloud, which enables organizations to extend Google Cloud’s infrastructure and services to the edge and data centers through a fully managed portfolio of hardware and software solutions. Google’s decentralized cloud is expected to be deployed to thousands of McDonald’s restaurants, allowing them to leverage cloud-based software applications as well as on-site on-premises software and artificial intelligence solutions.
McDonald’s will become the world’s largest foodservice retailer using Google’s decentralized cloud, and restaurants will be upgraded starting next year. Google Cloud said the partnership will be “an important step forward for McDonald’s in advancing its restaurant technology platform to be the most advanced and efficient in the industry.”
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in a statement: “Through this broad partnership, Google Cloud will help McDonald’s seize new opportunities, transform its business and customer experience, and provide restaurants around the world with the latest technology to make a short-term impact. “
The move is a departure for McDonald’s, which previously had a global data platform tie-up with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Photo by Robbie Pastores
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