Microsoft and Equinor have signed a new cooperative agreement.
The billion kroner agreement entails that Microsoft build two new data centres in Norway.
Equinor will provide industrial knowledge and business necessities to support Microsoft in the development of new solutions.
Microsoft will provide expertise to accelerate Equinor’s IT development,as well as to establish new regional data centres.
“The rapid technology development creates new opportunities, and the collaboration enables our digital journey to deliver a safer and more efficient operation,” said IT Director, Åshild Hanne Larsen, of Equinor.
The agreement entails that the two companies work together to get Equinor solutions, where Microsoft stores and manages the oil company’s data at its data centres. Microsoft will also assist in Equinor’s major efforts to upgrade and develop its IT systems.
At the same time, Equinor will assist Microsoft in the development of solutions and systems that are organised by the company specifically and for the oil and energy industry in general.
“They become a major client, but we have room for many more” said Kimberly Lein-Mathiesen, CEO of Microsoft Norway.
Microsoft will not yet be more concrete about the two data centers than that they would like them to be in the Oslo and Stavanger regions.They will be in operation by the end of next year. The services from Microsoft’s new data centres will come into operation in late 2019, initially with Azure services.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
