Vodafone and Microsoft corporation have entered a 10-year-long “strategic partnership” which will see the British telecommunication company invest $1.5 billion in cloud and AI-focused customer services.
Microsoft revealed on its website on Tuesday that the partnership intends to “leverage their respective strengths in offering scaled digital platforms to more than 300 million businesses, public sector organizations, and consumers across Europe and Africa”.
As part of this collaboration, the two companies will work on 5 core areas: generative AI, scaling IoT, digital acceleration in Africa, enterprise growth, and cloud transformation.
Microsoft will invest in Vodafone’s IoT connectivity platforms and expand the M-Pesa services in Africa with Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform. Microsoft will become an equity investor as Vodafone plans to convert its IoT platform into a new, standalone business in 2024.
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Additionally, Vodafone will utilize Microsoft’s AI-assistant Copilot and Azure platforms to deliver frictionless, real-time, proactive, and hyper-personalized experiences across all Vodafone customer touchpoints.
“This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers,” said Margherita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone Group.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “We will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience of hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe,”.