Google said Thursday that it is to purchase data analytics startup Looker in a 2.6-billion-US-dollar all-cash deal to better tap into data and cloud computing business.

Google said Looker will join Google Cloud after the acquisition is closed, which will provide customers with a more comprehensive analytics solution and allow enterprises to leverage the power of analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Google Cloud has been widely used by many leading enterprises and organizations in the world for analytics and decision-making.

"The combination of Google Cloud and Looker will enable customers to harness data in new ways to drive their digital transformation," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.

He said Google will remain committed to its multi-cloud strategy and will retain and expand Looker's capabilities to analyze data across Clouds.

The deal has been Google's biggest acquisition since it bought smart home company Nest, a firm funded by Google parent Alphabet, at a cost of 3.2 billion dollars in 2014.

"The combination of Looker and Google Cloud advances our mission that we undertook from the beginning -- to empower humans through the smarter use of data," said Looker CEO Frank Bien.

Google Cloud's BigQuery and associated data infrastructure, together with Looker's platform for innovative data solutions, will help solve business problems with data at an entirely different scale and value point, he said.

Bien said Looker has been a close partner of Google Cloud for more than four years, and through such a partnership, the two companies have shared more than 350 joint customers, such as Buzzfeed, Hearst, King, Sunrun, WPP Essence, and Yahoo.

"This is not, by any means, the end for Looker, but simply the closing of our first chapter with many more to come," Bien said, pledging to continue creating value for thousands of additional customers across the globe.