Google has given Chinese online retailer JD.com a $550m (£415m) cash injection, as part of the US tech giant’s push to increase its presence in Asian markets.
According to TechCrunch, the two companies hope to merge JD.com’s supply chain technology, which includes a fully-automated warehouse, with Google’s global reach and customer data in order to develop “new kinds” of online shopping solutions.
Google will promote JD.com products through its online shopping platform “across the world” for starters, but the two firms “have other collaborations in mind for the future”, according to the tech news site.
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The deal is another significant step for Google in its bid to boost its presence in East Asian markets.
The firm’s search engine was banned in China in 2010 when the company refused to censor search results to “comply with local laws”, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Since then Google has been looking at other avenues to increase its investment in East Asian, the newspaper says. The company bought a stake in Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek in January.
And the previous month saw Google open an artificial intelligence (AI) research facility in Beijing, where it hopes to work “closely with the vibrant Chinese AI research community”.
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