Nadella said that 54 Azure Cloud regions worldwide is “more than any other provider”. According to him, underwater data centres will play a key role in expanding Microsoft’s Cloud computing platform. Under its “Project Natick”, Mictosoft has already deployed a 40-foot data centre pod on the seafloor off the coast of Scotland. “Since 50 per cent of the world’s population lives close to water bodies, we think this is the way we want to think about
future data centre expansion,” Nadella said. Microsoft also unveiled an AI report titled “Maximising the AI Opportunity” for businesses. The company announced at the event that the health agency NHS Scotland will deploy Office 365 to all of its 161,000 employees, moving away from a complicated organisation that included more than 100 separate computer systems. Microsoft also formed a strategic partnership with Centrica, the British energy and services company behind brands like British Gas, Dyno and Direct Energy. Centrica plans to transform field operations by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Artificial Intelligence, providing employees with real time and actionable insight so they can improve customer service
