Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Microsoft India on Monday announced signing of a pact to develop a regulated sector-focused cloud offering to empower customers with the best-of-breed cloud computing and infrastructure services.

In line with emerging regulations, L&T and Microsoft will co-engage with a defined set of large customers in regulated sectors to develop architectures and road maps to modernise their traditional data centres to potentially hybrid models and advance their digital transformation goals.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), the two industry leaders will set up a joint governance group to define future platform designs, investments, and commercial/business models to service the regulated sectors’ emerging technology requirements, according to a statement.

Senior leadership teams of both the organisations will be engaged collectively on this as the association evolves. “India is at the cusp of enormous cloud adoption, as innovation, scale and agility become critical determinants for enterprises grow and compete globally. Our partnership with Microsoft aims to accelerate hybrid cloud transition for large customers in regulated sectors, while maintaining the highest benchmarks of compliance, security, and governance,” Larsen & Toubro CEO and MD S N Subrahmanyan said.

As per the present norms, the MoU will focus on engaging customers in the Indian jurisdiction, with the potential to extend this partnership to other jurisdictions in the future, as agreed between the two companies. At an appropriate time, L&T and Microsoft will consider possible partnership structures to continue to collaborate for the performance of this MoU.

“Microsoft is excited to collaborate with L&T to support the public sector and the other regulated industries as they seek to accelerate digital services to benefit all parts of India. This partnership will enable development of a scalable cloud infrastructure model for these sectors to accelerate their digital innovation, in alignment with the data location and security needs of India,” Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari said.