Accenture, one of the leading tech giant has acquired Core Compete, a Durham, North Carolina- headquartered cloud analytics services firm, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the deal, Core Compete’s team of more than 260 professionals will join Accenture’s Applied Intelligence practice.

Core Compete, which has offices in the UK and India, enables digital alterations with cloud-native solutions that distribute artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-infused business outcomes, to serve a diverse client base across the US and UK, with particular focus on supply chain, retail and financial services.

With its deeply skilled group of data science, data engineering and cloud engineering consultants, the majority of whom have skills across all major cloud providers, Core Compete is well-positioned to meet a significant need in the market.

As for Accenture, Core Compete is its eighth applied intelligence-focused acquisition in the past two years, building on its growing analytics, data and AI business around the world. The other acquisitions include Analytics8 in Australia, Pragsis Bidoop in Spain, Mudano in the UK, Byte Prophecy in India, Sentelis in France, and Clarity Insights and End-to-End Analytics in the US.

Accenture research shows that two-thirds of CXOs are planning to increase spending on AI and more than 60 percent will invest more in cloud-based technologies.

Sanjeev Vohra, global lead for Accenture Applied Intelligence. “Over the past year we’ve seen cloud adoption increase, enabling organisations to unlock the enterprise value from data and AI strategy at speed.”

“Core Compete’s approach to cloud analytics transformation would help Accenture further accelerate time to value for our clients, giving them the right tools, strategy and talent to reap the full benefits of being data-driven.” Said Sanjeev.