US computer giant Microsoft, along with other large groups, will invest more than $ 2 billion in General Motors (GM) autonomous vehicle subsidiary, called Cruise, valued at more than $ 30 billion for the operation.
“Microsoft and GM launch a” long-term strategic partnership “aimed at” accelerating the commercialization of autonomous vehicles “, thanks to collaborations in the field of engineering or computer science of different products,” said a statement. altogether disclosed this Tuesday.
In addition to Microsoft, Honda is also part of the investors.
Cruise, based in San Francisco, in the State of California, plans to use Microsoft’s computing platform called Azure to help deploy its fleet of autonomous vehicles, while Microsoft will be the cloud computing provider of both GM and Cruise, in addition, they will collaborate in the fields of hardware and software engineering.
“Our mission, which is to offer safer, better and cheaper transportation for all, is not just a technology race, it is also a race for trust,” said Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, in the statement.
For her part, Mary Barra, CEO of GM, said that the commercialization of electric and autonomous cars of Cruise will help the company to learn and obtain more benefits from cloud computing.
The move caused GM shares to skyrocket more than 7% in the early Wall Street exchanges.
GM plans to invest about $ 27 billion in electric vehicles by 2025, with plans to launch 30 new electric vehicles globally.
The investment in Cruise is Microsoft’s first major foray into the driverless car segment. Alphabet, parent of Google, has been in this industry for some time through Waymo.
For its part, Apple is working on a project for an autonomous car that could be a commercial reality within five years. Cruise has been testing driverless cars in San Francisco for years, but the company still doesn’t allow non-employees to ride in them. The company had plans to launch a commercial taxi service in 2019, but the project has been delayed and has no launch date yet.
GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for just over $ 1 billion.