The electric vehicle (“EV”) sector is one of the hottest industries right now — and for good reason. Everyone wants a piece of the electric action, from EV start-ups and veteran automakers to companies that didn’t even dabble in the auto industry in the first place. Tesla may currently be at the top of the EV game, but it will have to contend with several players battling to secure a share of the young EV industry as time passes.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), a company primarily known for developing, manufacturing, licensing and selling computer software, electronics and personal computers, has announced that it has strategically teamed up with General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) together with Cruise LLC to help develop and commercialize self-driving cars. Based in San Francisco, California, Cruise LLC has GM as a majority stakeholder with a goal to develop the world’s most advanced self-driving, fully electric, shared vehicles.
The California-based self-driving car has received more than $2 million in equity investment from GM, Microsoft and Honda Motors (OTC: HNDAF) as well as other institutional investors, bringing its valuation to $30 billion. According to Cruise, Microsoft will help accelerate the commercialization of its all-electric, shared, self-driving vehicles. The three companies will collaborate on cloud computing, software and hardware engineering, partner ecosystem and manufacturing.
More specifically, Cruise will use Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure to commercialize its self-driving electric vehicles on a larger scale. The 10-year-old cloud and edge computing platform was designed to build, test, deploy and manage applications through data centers managed by Microsoft. This technology will allow Cruise to “unlock the potential of cloud computing” for autonomous vehicles, Microsoft says. Microsoft will in turn leverage the industry insight it gained from working with Cruise to develop technology for automotive companies and expand into the transportation industry.
GM chairman and CEO Mary Barra has called Microsoft a great addition to the team as it continues to look toward achieving zero emissions and zero congestion. On top of accelerating Cruise’s efforts to start earning a profit from its autonomous vehicles, Microsoft will also lend its cloud computing expertise to GM, which plans to launch 30 new electric vehicle models globally by 2025.
General Motors will leverage Microsoft’s expertise to help speed digitization initiatives such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, collaboration and storage. Microsoft’s cloud computing expertise will also help General Motors scout for opportunities to streamline its operations across digital supply chains, increase employee productivity and increase the speed at which customers get new mobility services.
Meanwhile, Net Element (NETE), a leading global fintech company, is in the process of completing a reverse merger with Mullen Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of electric vehicles. The resulting company will be one to watch.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Net Element (NASDAQ: NETE) are available in the company’s newsroom at http://ibn.fm/NETE
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