Microsoft has entered into a long-term strategic relationship with General Motors and Cruise, the automaker’s majority-owned autonomous car unit, to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving vehicles.
As part of the partnership, the tech giant will join GM, Honda Motor and other institutional investors in a combined new equity investment of more than $2 billion in Cruise, bringing the post-money valuation of Cruise to $30 billion. The company did not breakdown the new funding by company.
In its announcement Tuesday, the companies said Microsoft will become the preferred cloud provider for GM and Cruise. The companies said they will work collaboratively on software and hardware engineering, cloud computing capabilities, manufacturing and partner ecosystem.
“Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “As Cruise and GM’s preferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”
GM’s stock closed up 9.8% at $54.84 a share, setting a new closing record after hitting an intraday high of $55.14 earlier Tuesday. The automaker’s market cap is $78.5 billion. Microsoft’s stock closed up $1.8% at $216.44 a share.
Cruise will leverage Azure, Microsoft’s cloud and edge computing platform, to commercialize its unique autonomous vehicle solutions at scale.
“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,” Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a statement.
GM said it will work with Microsoft as its “preferred public cloud provider to accelerate its digitization initiatives, including collaboration, storage, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.” In addition, the Detroit automaker will explore opportunities with Microsoft to streamline operations across its digital supply chains and bring new mobility services to customers faster.
In a statement, GM CEO Mary Barra called Microsoft a “great addition” to assist the automaker with cloud computing as it spends $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025, including 30 new EVs.
Source: Business - cnbc.com
