Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has announced a major strategic alliance with Japanese industrial conglomerate Hitachi Ltd. (OTC: HTHIF), which is projected to involve multibillion-dollar investments over the next three years. The partnership aims to accelerate social innovation through the application of generative artificial intelligence across a wide range of industries. Under the agreement, Hitachi will embed several of Microsoft's flagship cloud and AI products, including Azure OpenAI Service, Dynamics 365, Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot, into its Lumada solutions for sectors like energy, mobility, manufacturing and logistics. The integrated offerings are intended to deliver innovative digital solutions that drive better business and societal outcomes. A key pillar of the collaboration is accelerating Hitachi's own internal digital transformation. Hitachi aims to boost operational efficiency for its global workforce by deploying Microsoft's generative AI technologies like Copilot and GitHub Copilot across application development, customer service and other core functions. The partnership extends to joint projects focused on enhancing cloud services and cybersecurity resilience and reducing the environmental impact of data centers, an area of increasing priority given the rising demand for computing from generative AI workloads. Microsoft and Hitachi also plan to collaborate on strengthening digital talent pipelines by incorporating Azure OpenAI Service and GitHub Copilot training into the latter's program for developing more than 50,000 GenAI Professionals to support customer digital transformations. This wide-ranging partnership marks an important step in MSFT's strategy to commercialize generative AI capabilities ...