Stellantis and Microsoft said on Thursday they have entered a five-year strategic partnership to jointly develop artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and engineering capabilities as the automaker seeks to keep pace with technology-focused competitors.
The companies said the collaboration builds on prior work on connected vehicle platforms and in-car digital services, and will see joint teams co-develop more than 100 AI projects. Areas identified for joint development include product development and validation, predictive maintenance and testing, and accelerating the rollout of digital features and services.
"Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we are accelerating our AI momentum across the enterprise," Stellantis Chief Engineering and Technology Officer Ned Curic said in a joint statement.
The agreement will also broaden Stellantis' cyber defence capabilities. The automaker will strengthen a global cyber defence centre that uses AI-driven analytics to detect and help prevent cyber threats across vehicles, customer data and operations worldwide. The defence centre is intended to encompass IT systems, connected vehicles, manufacturing sites and digital products, embedding security functions across mobile apps and in-vehicle services.
As part of the tie-up, Stellantis plans to accelerate the modernisation of its IT infrastructure on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. The automaker has set a target to reduce its data centre footprint by 60% by 2029 as it transitions more workloads to the cloud environment specified in the agreement.
The announcement reiterated that Stellantis has leaned on technology partnerships to support its software ambitions and to offer more personalised experiences for drivers. The company has also reallocated or scaled back some prior partnerships as it refocuses on improving core vehicle sales and quality; Reuters reported last year that Stellantis' in-car software arrangement with Amazon was winding down.
No financial details of the five-year agreement were disclosed by either company.
The arrangement signals a continued trend among established automakers to partner with large technology providers to accelerate software and digital services development, leveraging external expertise rather than attempting to develop all capabilities in-house.
Under the terms described by the two companies, collaboration will span engineering and operational domains with an emphasis on embedding AI into validation, maintenance and testing workflows, while deploying security analytics to protect a broad set of systems from IT backends to in-vehicle services.
The timeline and specific milestones beyond the 60% data centre reduction target were not detailed in the announcement, and neither firm released budgetary figures for the programme.