UPS prepares for a data surge by expanding its Google Cloud deal

United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE: UPS) announced on Tuesday that it was expanding its 2019 deal with Google Cloud as it intends to roll out new data initiatives. UPS will get increased network, compute, and storage capacity as part of this expansion. It’ll also continue using Alphabet Inc’s machine learning and artificial intelligence tools to examine incoming information.

UPS expects a surge of incoming data with the introduction and implementation of its new initiatives, like including radio-frequency ID chips on packages. However, both parties involved in the deal refused to talk about how much the cloud capacity will increase or the deal’s value.

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How does management feel?

Google Cloud’s President for North America, Kirsten Kliphouse, said:

The need for us to come together has just accelerated. It’s always been there—but the need has now become even greater, and the capabilities of what we’re able to provide with the technology that we have today enables this to be a real way to produce value.

Kirsten claims it’s the right time to expand the UPS and Google Cloud relationship partly because of the data surge coming from UPS operations and the rising demand for deeper analysis.

UPS’ engineering and chief information officer, Juan Perez, said, “The potential is unlimited,” when referring to the expansion.

Attaching RFID chips to packages

UPS plans to place RFID chips on outgoing packages to offer more detailed information about package locations. However, the new initiative is still in its early stages. Although, a company spokesperson claimed that chips are currently in use on packages traveling under the company’s Premiere level service.

Apparently, they were also utilized in the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines.

The RFID information and other package data will be examined in the cloud by the company’s Harmonized Enterprise Analytics Tool. UPS developed this tool with the help of Google Cloud. Heat uses this data to determine the best path for packages.