(Reuters) – Self-driving car maker Cruise and majority shareholder General Motors Co said on Tuesday they would work with Microsoft Corp to market driverless self-driving cars.
Microsoft will join General Motors, Honda Motor Co and institutional investors in a combined new equity investment of more than $ 2 billion in Cruise, bringing Cruise’s post-cash valuation to $ 30 billion.
Cruise will use Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, for its self-driving vehicles.
“As the preferred cloud of Cruise and GM, we will use the power of Azure to help them scale and bring autonomous transportation mainstream,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
GM will partner with Microsoft to accelerate the automaker’s digitization initiatives, including artificial intelligence, and explore opportunities to streamline operations in digital supply chains and bring new mobility services to customers faster.
Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel