A tech giant offering top quality online technology and equity capital does not drop in on an exchanges business every day. But on Thursday, CME, the Chicago-based futures exchange, said it would move its trading system technology to Google’s cloud and sell the search group a $1bn stake.

CME hopes to benefit from the tech juggernaut’s expertise in analytics and machine learning. The decade-long agreement is sealed with a chunk of convertible preferred stock. Yet using that kind of buying power beyond Silicon Valley, even in a small deal like this, should elicit scrutiny about Google’s power and reach.

Google saw an opportunity. Its cloud infrastructure business trails those of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. But given its market capitalisation of $1.9tn and a cash balance of nearly $150bn, a partnership with the CME looks a canny gambit.