Canadian National Railway (CN) and Google have entered into a seven-year partnership to transform CN’s rail tech infrastructure. The transformation will include digital scheduled railroading, new customer experiences, and the modernisation of CN’s technology infrastructure in the cloud.

The two companies plan to collaborate on new services to transform the North American railway system, combining CN’s expertise in the transportation and logistics industry with Google Cloud’s technology and culture of innovation.

CN is Canada’s largest railway, having been the country’s Government owned national carrier from its founding in 1919 until privatisation in 1995. The company is also a significant railway operator in the United States, having acquired a number of US railway operators such as Illinois Central. The largest stakeholder in CN is Bill Gates, who owns 10.04 percent of the firm.

Through the partnership between CN and Google, the two companies aim to set a new standard for the railway system that delivers better experiences for customers across industries, from materials and resources to manufactured products and consumer goods. CN believes that its work with Google Cloud will drive the railway’s ability to achieve continued growth and execute on transformational business initiatives, while supporting its sustainability goals, as Google’s platform is the cleanest cloud in the industry.

“Our partnership with Google Cloud is central to our strategic plan, and reinforces our commitment to digitalizing scheduled railroading and building the premier railway of the 21st century by investing in technologies that deliver high-quality service to customers, improve safety, and create capacity,” said Dominique Malenfant, Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer, CN. “We are excited to work together to drive further innovation across our company and support our customers, employees, and supply chain partners.”

As part of the partnership, CN and Google Cloud will collaborate on the following initiatives:

• Enabling better connectivity and collaboration with customers and supply chain partners: CN will develop a digital platform powered by Google Cloud’s AI and machine learning (ML) tools to provide customers and supply chain partners more visibility into the logistics journey of planning, shipping, tracking and payment.
• Delivering new experiences for CN’s customers through co-innovation initiatives: this will combine CN’s industry expertise with Google Cloud’s leadership in data analytics, AI, and ML to deliver solutions and next-generation experiences for CN’s employees, customers, and partners, such as simplified ordering and automated tracking to further enhance predictive maintenance capabilities.
• Modernizing CN’s infrastructure in the cloud: CN will gradually move the large majority of its digital infrastructure, including SAP applications, from on-premises to Google Cloud’s always-on global network. Moving to the cloud will allow CN to scale with customer and industry demands, simplify the company’s IT estate, create efficiencies, and reduce product delivery lead times.

“The transportation and logistics industry is evolving rapidly to build more resilient, responsive supply chains that adapt to global events and provide customers more visibility and flexibility,” said Jim Lambe, Managing Director, Google Cloud Canada. “We’re proud to partner with CN as it leverages technology to reimagine the future of the railway system.”