Travel technology company Amadeus has renewed its cloud computing contract with Microsoft.
Following on from a 2021 agreement, Amadeus has recommitted to its cloud migration strategy and will use Microsoft's cloud and AI technologies.
Since first signing an agreement with Microsoft in 2021, Amadeus has thus far moved more than 50 percent of its applications to the public cloud. The new contract will "further advance" this migration.
Amadeus will also use Microsoft's AI capabilities. Its online booking tool, Cytric Easy, will be infused with generative AI in a bid to create a more conversational experience. The company also plans to create a virtual operations center for airports and a generative AI-based tool to assist hoteliers in understanding business intelligence data.
Microsoft "has proven to be a reliable partner for our cloud migration," said Sylvain Roy, CTO of Amadeus. "In just a few years, we are already delivering innovative solutions that leverage the technical excellence of both companies and that have the power to transform the travel of tomorrow. I look forward to achieving even more in the coming years."
"Since our initial announcement in 2021, the pace of the digitalization in the travel industry has continued to accelerate. By combining Amadeus’ expertise with the power of AI and the strength of the Azure Cloud, we are confident that Amadeus continues to transform travel for tomorrow," added Corine de Bilbao, president of Microsoft France.
Amadeus IT Group is a Spanish multinational company. The company has a data center in Erding, Germany. In 2018, the Amadeus website said that the data center handled more than 1.6 billion transactions per day and housed more than 7,500 servers.
In a 2021 interview with Travolution, the company said that the Microsoft deal would not see an "immediate" shutdown of its data center. DCD has contacted Amadeus for more information about the company's existing data center and when a planned complete exit will occur, if at all.
In 2017, Amadeus' online booking platform Amadeus Altrea crashed for fifteen minutes, leading to flight delays in seven different airports. The disruption was put down to a "network issue." It was not confirmed at the time if the issue lay in the Erding data center.
