British telecommunications company Vodafone (VOD) has signed a 10-year partnership agreement with Microsoft (MSFT) to bring generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) and cloud services to 300 million businesses and consumers across Europe and Africa.
Under terms of the deal, Vodafone will invest $1.5 billion U.S. in customer focused A.I. that it develops using Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies.
Microsoft will become an equity investor in Vodafone’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform when it is spun out as a separate business through an initial public offering (IPO) in April of this year.
Microsoft has also agreed to help scale Vodafone’s mobile financial platform throughout Africa.
Vodafone’s mobile money platform that operates in Kenya, Tanzania and other African nations shares the same objectives as Microsoft to build digital literacy among people.
The stock of Vodafone has declined 24% in the last 12 months and currently trades at $8.66 U.S. per share.
Microsoft’s stock has gained 62% over the past year and currently trades at $388.47 U.S. a share.
