Cruise has raised $2 billion in a new equity round that has pushed its valuation up to $30 billion and delivered Microsoft as a cloud computing partner and investor.
GM, Honda and other institutional investors have also put more capital into Cruise as the autonomous vehicle company inches closer to commercializing its technology.
While Microsoft’s capital is important, the company’s partnership might provide equal and longer term value for Cruise. Under the long-term strategic partnership, Cruise will leverage Azure, Microsoft’s
cloud and edge computing platform, to commercialize its autonomous vehicle solutions at scale.
Any autonomous vehicle company aiming to commercialize needs a robust cloud computing platform. Operating fleets of self-driving vehicles that will shuttle people and even packages generates a massive amount of data, making cloud services one of the bigger costs for an AV company.
Cruise’s partnership with Microsoft aims to provide benefits for both companies. Cruise will be able to lock in lower prices for cloud services and Microsoft will be able to test the some of its bleeding edge systems that can handle workloads needed to bring machine learning and robotics — like autonomous vehicles — to life and at scale.
“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.”
The two companies will work together to accelerate the commercialization of Cruise’s fleet of all-electric, self-driving shared vehicles. Cruise will leverage Microsoft’s cloud computing, and Microsoft will leverage Cruise’s cutting-edge AV workloads, tools, and expertise.
“Our mission to bring safer, better, and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race – it’s also a trust race,” Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a statement. “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 partnership extends to GM as well, according to Tuesday’s announcement. Microsoft will be GM’s preferred public cloud provider to help the automaker accelerate several of it digitization initiatives as well as streamline operations across digital supply chains.
The partnership will not only allow Cruise to accelerate the commercialization of its all-electric, self-driving vehicles, it help “GM realize even more benefits from cloud computing as we launch 30 new electric vehicles globally by 2025 and create new businesses and services to drive growth, GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra said.
