Spotify this week announced that much of its data will be moved from its own servers to the Google Cloud Platform, marking what is seen as a major coup for the search giant. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Spotify's music files will still be hosted on a storage service from Amazon, which has long been the dominant player in cloud hosting, though its core infrastructure will move to Google. According to the music streaming service, Google's data analytics capabilities were the deciding factor in the shift.

"That’s where Google has the edge and that’s where we think they will continue to have the edge," Nicholas Harteau, Spotify’s vice president of engineering and infrastructure, tells The Wall Street Journal.

The move has also fueled speculation that Google may eventually acquire Spotify to gain a stronger foothold in the streaming market. Spotify has more than 20 million subscribers and 75 million active users, while Apple Music reportedly reached the 10 million subscriber mark last month. Google was reportedly interested in acquiring Spotify in 2014, but talks broke down over price negotiations.