Microsoft Announces a $1.1 Billion Investment Plan to Drive Digital Transformation in Country Including Its First Cloud Datacenter Region

The investment plan will provide cloud services from local datacenters to contribute to the development of the country, a robust education and skilling program to support employability for hundreds of thousands of youth, projects applying AI to benefit the society, and an Advisory Board with important CEOs as some of the first initiatives over the next five years

Microsoft announces continued progress on its plan “Innovate for Mexico», to contribute to the development of the country. The main pillar of the plan is focused on accelerating Mexico’s digital transformation through democratizing the access to technology. The company announced plans to establish a new cloud datacenter region in Mexico to deliver its intelligent and trusted cloud services to serve Mexico’s public entities, organizations and Mexican society, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. This datacenter region is an important part of Microsoft’s $1.1 billion investment plan in Mexico over the next five years. The plan also includes a robust education and skilling program with different initiatives the first one being  the creation of three laboratories and a virtual classroom, in collaboration with public universities to create an education platform for digital skills, to expand employability in future generations. The first initiative of the commitment to apply artificial intelligence to create societal impact is an  investment in the project “Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Pelagic Sharks in the Mexican Pacific Ocean” (Shark ID), focused on the conservation of Mako shark species, driven by Mexico Azul, as part of the initiative AI for Earth, creating societal impact. Furthermore, with the objective to connect the digital transformation experiences and needs, Microsoft is engaging CEOs of  leading industry companies evolving in their digital transformation to be part of  an Advisory Board to identify the demand for skilling initiatives, share best practices, track progress, and improve employability.

Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, talks about the announcement of a $1.1 billion investment plan to drive digital transformation in Mexico including its first cloud datacenter region.

Few places in the world today are as dynamic and diverse as Mexico. In this landscape, we see enormous opportunity for the cloud to accelerate innovation, support people across the country working to transform their businesses, explore new entrepreneurship opportunities and help solve some of the country’s most difficult challenges. Microsoft’s plan to establish a new cloud datacenter region in Mexico will deliver its intelligent, secure and trusted cloud services expanding the company’s global cloud infrastructure to 57 cloud regions in 22 countries. Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform services will help companies innovate in their industries and move their businesses to the cloud while meeting security and compliance needs:

Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) services. Office 365 enables cloud-based productivity with email, collaboration, conferencing, enterprise social networking and business intelligence. Dynamics 365 and Power Platform is the next generation of intelligent business applications that enable organizations to grow, evolve and transform to meet the needs of customers and capture new opportunities.

Microsoft’s new cloud datacenter region in Mexico will provide highly available, scalable and secure cloud services across Mexico with the option of data residency in country. This local datacenter infrastructure benefits small, medium and large business and the startups ecosystem and stimulates economic development for both customers and partners alike, enabling companies, governments, and regulated industries to realize the benefits of the cloud for innovation and new projects, as well as bolstering the technology ecosystem that supports these projects.

“At SAT, we are collaborating with Microsoft to make the digital transformation initiatives that support fiscal processes a reality. This is how, through the use of cloud computing on Microsoft Azure, we are able to process huge volumes of information and evolve our electronic invoicing service, which receives an average of 21.1 million invoices per day. To accomplish this, SAT worked with Microsoft to build the first low-cost platform for mass processing of electronic invoices, decreasing from hours to few minutes the processing time, but also reducing the monthly cost of the solution by 90%, which translates to approximately $4M USD. This latest generation architecture is based on the Spark Open Source platform on Azure called Databricks and Data Lake storage.” Juan Pablo de Botton, Planning General Manager, SAT.

«Telmex and Telcel in collaboration with Microsoft work on the digital transformation of their processes and systems, including the use of Artificial Intelligence, with benefits and efficiencies for their end customers. Together they also offer services to support the digital transformation of Mexican companies,» Oscar Von Hauske, Chief Fixed-line Operations Officer, Director of America Movil.

“As part of Liverpool’s digital transformation strategy, in 2019 we changed the way to interact digitally with our customers through personalized electronic communication based mostly on Microsoft technology. This personalization initiative enables Liverpool to be closer to our customers, understand their needs and their life cycle so we can offer them what’s best for each one.  With this, Liverpool transforms itself to really become customer centric and customer first.» Graciano Guichard, CEO El Puerto de Liverpool.

“In a decade where the digital transformation will undoubtedly open new opportunities and horizons, we are convinced that the announcement of this $1.1 billion investment plan represents how we remain true to our commitment to Mexico’s social and economic development. The new datacenter region in our country will provide intelligent services to help companies innovate in their industries. The skilling program not only benefits government institutions, businesses and society at large, it also shows the importance of Mexico as a leader in the adoption of artificial intelligence, cloud and other technologies in Latin America. Over the next 5 years we will invest on these and other initiatives including events to foster innovation and skilling for developers, startups, organizations in general. There is only one future, and it will be digital. Mexico is well positioned to harness the power of new technologies, and by jointly working with Microsoft, the country will make this future a reality” Enrique Perezyera, general manager Microsoft Mexico.

Microsoft is committed to sustainability. We’re using the power of our technology to minimize the environmental impact of our products and operations and working with our partners around the world to discover and implement innovative ways to transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future. This new datacenter cloud region in Mexico will be part of Microsoft’s effort to reduce its carbon emissions by more than half by 2030, both for its direct emissions and for its entire supply chain and value; by 2050, Microsoft will remove from the environment all the carbon it has emitted directly or by electricity consumption since its founding in 1975.

Skilling for the Future

The plan “Innovate  for Mexico” has a second important pillar called “Skilling for the Future”, with the objective of developing skills in new technologies for young students that give them a higher level of education and better future employability opportunities. As one of the first initiatives  of a comprehensive plan on this area, Microsoft is announcing the implementation of three physical laboratories of state-of-the-art technologies in three universities selected by the Education Ministry (in the North, Central and South of the country). The main objective of the Microsoft Laboratories is to make available to teachers, researchers and higher-level students updated training proposals in technological solutions, especially focused on a deep understanding of knowledge and the skills that society and the labor market require at all times. Teachers, students, researchers and administration  of the university in which the laboratory is located, will have the opportunity to configure a personalized and articulated learning path with their needs and interests. The basic training proposal includes the development of new technical skills and content relevant to professional profiles. In addition to the physical sites, Microsoft will work with  public universities to implement a concept called virtual Classroom  accompaniment that will be basis of the educational proposal that will allow to amplify the innovation generated in the laboratories seeking to benefit thousands of young Mexicans  and improve their employability in the future.

Creating societal impact in the country

The objective of the third pillar of the Microsoft “Digital Innovation for Mexico” plan is to positively impact society in Mexico. As one of the first initiatives, Microsoft is announcing the investment to support the project “Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Pelagic Sharks in the Mexican Pacific Ocean (Shark ID)”, led by the Mexican NGO Mexico Azul together with students from La Salle University. Mako Shark initiative in Cabo San Lucas will receive a grant to create open source software that will photo-identify individual sharks of four highly vulnerable pelagic species in the Mexican Pacific by using AI and machine learning technologies, thus shaping a more efficient process to help to estimate population parameters, resulting in better marine conservation policies. The main objective of this project is to generate fundamental data to improve the monitoring and conservation of these species, first in Mexico and in the long run, worldwide. This initial investment is part of the AI for Earth initiative; designed to support projects that use  AI  to change the way people and organizations monitor, model, and manage Earth’s natural systems.

With these initiatives and our investments on the Plan Innovate for Mexico in the next five years, Microsoft reaffirms its commitment to Mexico’s development. Over the past 34 years Microsoft has had a significant employability  impact by contributing to the creation of more than 156,000 jobs in the IT sector, this in conjunction with the network of  4,000 business partners, which are Mexican small, medium-sized and enterprises. We have maintained the alliance with foundations and NGOs by creating a network of training centers where people can have access to computers, Internet and trainings, to learn digital skills; to date 15 million online trainings have been completed. People with disabilities are also a priority for Microsoft, making accessible technologies available for them, in order to bring them the tools that allow them to be educated, informed and with employability opportunities.

Today’s announcement of the new cloud datacenter region in Mexico is another example of Microsoft commitment with  the digital transformation of small and large companies through offering secure and fast access to advanced technology providing a competitive advantage to access the global market and increase satisfaction for consumers. By the creation of a robust education program starting with  three laboratories and virtual classroom for technical skills development on new technologies, Mexican citizens are given the opportunity to have access to better job opportunities and inclusion in the digital world. With the shark conservation project, AI can contribute to a positive society in Mexico and with the Advisory Board insights more young people will be benefited with more and better employability options.