A Cruise autonomous vehicle in Seattle. (Stephen Brashear Photo for Cruise)

Microsoft is partnering with Cruise and General Motors to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving vehicles by bringing its cloud computing technology to the equation. The tech giant joined a new $2 billion investment in Cruise, along with GM, Honda and others.

San Francisco-based Cruise, whose valuation rose to $30 billion, plans to leverage Microsoft’s Azure to handle the immense amount of data that needs to be collected to operate autonomous vehicles at scale.

“Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a news release on Tuesday. “As Cruise and GM’s preferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”

As part of the long-term strategic relationship, GM will also use Azure as its preferred public cloud provider to accelerate its digitization initiatives, including collaboration, storage, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

“Our mission to bring safer, better, and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race — it’s also a trust race,” Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said. “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.”

The driverless interior of a Cruise car. (Cruise Photo)

Cruise has been testing its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, according to The Verge, which said the company doesn’t yet allow non-employees to ride in its vehicles. The company had planned to launch a self-driving commercial taxi service in 2019, but missed that deadline.

Microsoft previously partnered with Chinese tech giant Baidu as its cloud partner for companies that wanted to use its self-driving software platform outside of China. Last year, the company detailed the steps it is taking in developing its connected vehicle platform and associated partnerships with auto and tech companies.

Cruise co-founder and CTO Kyle Vogt offered up a nine-tweet thread about how his company could have a $30 billion valuation and zero customers. Among other things, he tweeted that riding in Cruise cars feels like “riding in a spaceship.”

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