London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has entered into a long-term partnership with Microsoft to design its data infrastructure using the Microsoft Cloud as well as to co-develop new services and products for data and analytics.
As part of the collaboration, the parties have forged a 10-year commercial agreement to transfer LSEG’s data platform and other critical technology infrastructure into the Microsoft Cloud.
Microsoft Cloud and its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are expected to advance LSEG’s strategy of developing an effective and scalable platform for its data and analytics business.
The platform is expected to provide next-generation services for a variety of customers across the financial markets value chain through enhanced workflow and increased flexibility.
LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said: “This strategic partnership is a significant milestone on LSEG’s journey towards becoming the leading global financial markets infrastructure and data business, and will transform the experience for our customers.
“Bringing together our leading data sets, analytics, and global customer base with Microsoft’s comprehensive and trusted cloud services and global reach creates attractive revenue growth opportunities for both companies.”
Through the partnership, LSEG’s data and analytics workflow solution, Workspace, is expected to become interoperable with some Microsoft applications.
The companies intend to launch new cloud-based analytics services as well through their partnership.
By leveraging Azure Purview and Azure Synapse, LSEG plans to develop a cloud-based data architecture that unifies its datasets into a single, adaptable infrastructure built with privacy, security, and compliance.
Besides, data scientists and engineers will be able to use LSEG’s data and analytics services on the group’s infrastructure. They are expected to tap LSEG’s open financial data ecosystem by integrating their own data to create tailored solutions.
By using Azure machine learning and LSEG’s analytics and modelling capabilities, the companies will jointly create a new suite of solutions to give financial institutions greater reach across sophisticated cross-asset, sustainable investment-aligned, and non-conventional analytics.
Microsoft has also agreed to acquire an equity stake of around 4% in LSEG by purchasing shares from the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium.
