On Thursday, Lowell-based JB Hunt Transport Services announced a multi-year strategic alliance with Google, looking to strengthen its freight brokerage business, a market facing competition from digital-only upstarts.

• The company will do this by working with Google to develop machine-learning models to optimize match-making between shippers and carriers using its JB Hunt 360 platform, which aids shippers with supply and demand information ahead of time and allows carriers to estimate future fuel and transportation costs. -Wall Street Journal

• Shelley Simpson, J.B. Hunt’s chief commercial officer, said the recent partnership with Google allows J.B. Hunt to propel its digital transformation. Engineers and business leaders from both companies will focus on three transformational areas:

1. Open Cloud Capabilities to Create a Sophisticated Operating Model
2. Data Science to Drive Efficiency
3. Co-Innovation to Drive Future Solutions

• "Our partnership with J.B. Hunt creates a unique opportunity to transform the shipping and logistics experience through the use of AI, ML, and other technologies to help businesses—and the logistics industry as a whole—innovate for the future," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud -PR Newswire