London, Jan 16 (IANS): Europes fastest-growing public cloud provider Nordcloud has collaborated with technology giant Microsoft to deploy Azure-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) solutions across Europe.

"Nordcloud allows customers to make use of the entire Azure AI stack, creating scalable intelligent services and adding cutting-edge smart features to existing solutions in a fast, agile manner with the total cost of ownership benefits only cloud services can deliver," Nordcloud wrote in a blogpost late on Monday.

Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers.

"Nordcloud has partnered with Microsoft for jointly deploying Azure AI-based solutions for our enterprise customers," Antti Alila, Lead, Cloud and Enterprise Business, Microsoft, said in a statement.

"Nordcloud has already delivered AI projects for its clients. This is important to stress: AI is here and now and helping businesses innovate and gain a competitive edge," Alila added.

The partnership comes as Microsoft is making AI an ever-growing part of its vast portfolio, ranging from adding more AI smarts to Office 365 and Cortana, to establishing partnerships for an AI-powered health bot project.

Microsoft is also focusing on developers, recently announcing the launch new tools to help them build conversational bots, according to Windows Central.