Vodafone signs $1.5 bln Microsoft deal for AI, cloud and IoT

London: Vodafone has agreed a 10-year partnership with Microsoft to bring generative AI, digital, enterprise and cloud services to more than 300 million businesses and consumers across its European and African markets.

The British company will invest $1.5 billion in customer-focused AI developed with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies, it said, and will replace physical data centres with cheaper and scalable Azure cloud services.

Microsoft will in turn become an equity investor in Vodafone’s managed IoT (Internet of Things) platform when it is spun out as a standalone business by April 2024, and help scale Vodafone’s mobile financial platform in Africa.