Vodafone Announces 10-Year Cloud and AI Partnership with Microsoft

Vodafone announced today a new strategic partnership with Microsoft to develop generative AI, cloud, and IoT services. The company is planning to invest $1.5 billion over the next 10 years to develop new digital services for more than 300 million organizations and consumers across Europe and Africa.

On the generative AI front, the British company will leverage Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI platform to improve its customer service and its existing TOBi digital assistant. Vodafone employees will also get access to Microsoft Copilot and some of the company’s other modern work offerings such as Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile.

“This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers,” said Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive today.

Cloud transformation will be another key area of collaboration between Microsoft and Vodafone. The British carrier is planning to replace multiple physical data centers with an Azure-based infrastructure, which will allow the company to modernize its IT infrastructure and reduce operational costs.

Lastly, Microsoft is also planning to invest in Vodafone’s global Internet of Things connectivity platform, which already connects 175 million devices worldwide. The company also plans to turn this IoT platform, which will become a separate business by April 2024, into an open ecosystem through public APIs.