SANTIAGO, Chile – Microsoft Corp. today announced “Transforma Chile #ReactivacionDigital,” the company’s most significant investment in its 28-year history in the country. Delivered from datacenters in Chile, the Microsoft Cloud will increase remote work communications and learning through services like Microsoft Teams, improve reliability and scale of services from Chilean businesses, and empower individuals and the public and private sectors to innovate with the latest developer tools. In addition, Microsoft has developed a robust skilling plan for up to 180,000 Chileans and an Advisory Board comprising local leaders to create inclusive opportunities to succeed in the digital economy.
According to research from IDC, Microsoft, its partners and cloud-using customers will together generate an estimated $11.3 billion in new revenue and add an estimated 51,000 new jobs to the Chilean economy over the next four years*. Microsoft President Brad Smith and Microsoft Chile GM Sergio Rademacher, made the announcement alongside President of the Republic Sebastián Piñera and Minister of the Republic, Lucas Palacios.
“We aren’t building a datacenter just to power our own business, but to provide a critical investment in Chile’s infrastructure that will serve all the people who live here and customers who operate here,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft President. “Just as railways, power plants, highways, and airports helped Chile move into the future, today’s datacenters have become the cutting-edge infrastructure of the 21st century. Our datacenters near Santiago will make computing more accessible at even faster speeds, providing a new and secure platform for every part of the economy and supporting President Piñera’s and Chile’s ambitious digital agenda,” said Brad Smith, President, Microsoft.
Accelerating business transformation with the Microsoft Cloud and local Advisory Board
The Chile datacenter region will join Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure – the largest in the world – and will offer local businesses a competitive advantage across Chile’s key industries, such as energy, agriculture, finance, health, travel and manufacturing – by providing faster access to cloud services, as well as the ability to store data within the country. The Chile datacenter region will support Microsoft’s sustainability goals, including a commitment to shift to 100 percent supply of renewable energy in Microsoft datacenters by 2025, and will also deliver Azure Availability Zones, which can enable cloud applications to be highly available with additional tolerance to datacenter failures.
The Microsoft Cloud offers the latest advancements in collaboration, productivity and developer tools and capabilities for businesses and individuals, from citizen to pro developers, to innovate – all with advanced data security, privacy and more than 90 compliance certifications. The Microsoft Cloud includes: Microsoft Azure, enabling anyone to invent with purpose using cloud services and capabilities that span computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI and Internet of Things (IoT); Microsoft 365, which enables people and businesses to connect, collaborate, work remotely and learn online with innovative productivity tools; and Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, which enables organizations to rapidly build and manage critical enterprise business solutions at scale with intelligent business applications.
“The long-term investment in the country will improve opportunities for everyone. As Microsoft’s partner on our own digital transformation journey with the cloud, we are investing in Chileans’ well-being, with the goal to protect Chilean workers, using the cloud to provide new ways to create safer labor work environments,” said Felipe Bunster, General Manager, Mutual de Seguridad CChC.
“BCI is a company with a passion for innovation that seeks to make a substantial contribution to the transformation of the country. Over a year ago, we signed a unique Digital Transformation Agreement in the national financial industry, and today we are bringing together experts from BCI and Microsoft who will collaborate to accelerate the technological transformation of our operations. The collaboration with Microsoft and incorporation of cloud technologies has led to best practices and business models, allowing us to carry out a unique vision of the modern financial business. These innovations continue our commitment to improve customer experiences and build on our contributions to the development of the country,” said Eugenio von Chrismar, General Manager, BCI.
As part of Microsoft’s plan to support local growth, the company is creating an Advisory Board with the Centro de Innovación de Universidad Católica Anacleto Angelini and a community of local leaders. The Board will promote economic recovery and provide recommendations to the government regarding the demand for areas of skilling, share best practices, track progress, and improve employment opportunities. Lastly, Microsoft is establishing an agreement with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) to explore how Artificial Intelligence and cloud services can help to further increase the discovery potential of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the future Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) at the Paranal Observatory.
Skilling for the future with Fundación Chile, Corfo, Innovacien and Trust for the Americas
Microsoft is announcing a digital skilling commitment for up to 180,000 Chileans by 2025. Chilean citizens and startups will have the opportunity to participate in online trainings that will build their technology skillset, such as the Fundación Chile, Innovacien and Trust for the Americas. One of the first programs, Talento Digital para Chile, is a government initiative developed with Fundación Chile and CORFO that brings together companies, training institutions and government officials to help an estimated 10,000 people develop technical skills needed for higher-quality employment.
“One of our main challenges we face as a society is to train the workforce for the opportunities that come with digitalization. That’s why we celebrate Microsoft’s digital skilling initiative that will allow more people to access knowledge, generating better career paths and accelerating companies to have critical talent,” said Marcos Kulka, CEO, Fundación Chile.
Microsoft and Fundación Chile are also advancing work with TP Digital, which has already connected more than 500 teachers and 9,000 students of technical and professional institutions in the northern region of Chile, including Tarapacá, Antofagasta, Atacama and Coquimbo, and will expand across the country with an educational platform that enables tutorials and cloud services for remote learning.
Finally, Microsoft is continuing work with CORFO to accelerate innovation of the startup ecosystem through Microsoft for Startups access to development tools and skilling resources in Spanish like Microsoft AI Business School. “At CORFO, we advocate for the democratization of access to technology and digitalization of our companies and entrepreneurs. We want to position Chile as a pillar of innovation and technological development. In this effort, Microsoft has been a key partner and has continued to support CORFO’s program for entrepreneurship with a high technological degree,” said Pablo Terrazas, Executive Vice President, CORFO.
Today’s announcement reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to supporting local growth and opportunity for the citizens, companies and government of Chile through greater access to technology, programs and skilling.
IDC Info Snapshot, sponsored by Microsoft, The Microsoft Cloud Dividend Snapshot: Chile, Doc. # US46917820, October 2020
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