Microsoft Invests $2 billion Cruise, Self-driving Carmaker
Microsoft has announced that they will be joining Honda, General Motors, and other institutional investors by investing more than $2 billion in new equity by Cruise.
For this deal, the global tech giant has signed a long-term strategic partnership with US-based Cruise and General Motors. Self-driving carmakers along with the tech giant are looking to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous vehicles.
The partnership will bring together technologies of all the companies including cloud computing capabilities, software, and hardware engineering, partner ecosystem to transform transportation to create a safe, clean, and accessible world, and manufacturing know-how.
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The tech giant will join Honda, GM, and other investors in a combined new equity investment worth more than $2 billion in Cruise. It will bring the post valuation of $30 billion to Cruise.
Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, “Our mission to bring safer, better, and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race – it’s also a trusted race.”
He further said, “Microsoft, as the gold standard in the trustworthy democratization of technology, will be a force multiplier for us as we commercialize our fleet of self-driving, all-electric, shared vehicles.”
The cruise will be leveraging Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, to commercialize its autonomous vehicles at a scale. At the same time, Microsoft will also tap into the deep industry expertise of Cruise to enhance its product innovation and serve transportation.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said “Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods. As Cruise and GM’s preferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”
Furthermore, GM will also join hands with Microsoft and it will work as its preferred cloud service provider to accelerate its digitization. They will be taking up numerous initiatives for this purpose including storage, collaboration, AI, and ML
capabilities.
Besides, the carmaker will also look to explore new opportunities with the tech giant to streamline its operations across digital supply chains. This will bring new mobility services and foster productivity to customers faster.