Microsoft is backing a $2 billion funding round for General Motors’ driverless car unit Cruise as part of a long-term strategic relationship to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving vehicles.
The tech giant is joined by GM, Honda and institutional investors in the round, which brings Cruise’s valuation to $30 billion.
San Francisco-based Cruise will leverage Microsoft’s cloud and edge computing platform Azure to scale its driverless vehicle solutions. As its preferred cloud provider, Microsoft will also tap into Cruise’s industry expertise to enhance its product innovation and serve transportation companies.
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“Our mission to bring safer, better, and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race – it’s also a trust race,” says Cruise CEO Dan Ammann. “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.”
As part of the agreement, Microsoft will become GM’s preferred public cloud provider, as well, to accelerate the vehicle manufacturer’s digitization initiatives.
“Microsoft is a great addition to the team as we drive toward a future world of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion,” says GM chairman and CEO Mary Barra.
“Microsoft will help us accelerate the commercialization of Cruise’s all-electric, self-driving vehicles and 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.”
Top trend to watch
According to a Lux Research report, the rise of autonomous vehicles is the top technology trend to watch in 2021.
Big Tech has been leading a push in the area, with Amazon acquiring autonomous vehicle provider Zoox in June 2020 and Uber selling its self-driving vehicle unit to Amazon-backed Aurora Technologies in December.
Waymo, which is owned Google-parent Alphabet and welcomed its first external investment last March, has been testing driverless vehicles in California since the summer.
Also recently, Alibaba-backed AutoX said it has rolled out 25 driverless robo-taxis in Shenzhen, China.
Elsewhere, ride-hailing platform Didi announced a $500 million investment from SoftBank to develop autonomous driving technology in May.