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DJI and Microsoft Partner for Advanced Drone Technology

By Chrissie Cluney

Drones are becoming a regular occurrence in our society. Therefore, having the latest and most advanced technology is of the utmost of importance.

DJI, a civilian drones and aerial imaging technology company, and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership to bring advanced AI and machine learning capabilities to DJI drones. 

This partnership will assist businesses to harness the power of commercial drone technology and edge cloud computing.

“As computing becomes ubiquitous, the intelligent edge is emerging as the next technology frontier,” said Scott Guthrie, EVP, Cloud and Enterprise Group, Microsoft. “DJI is the leader in commercial drone technology, and Microsoft Azure is the preferred cloud for commercial businesses. Together, we are bringing unparalleled intelligent cloud and Azure IoT capabilities to devices on the edge, creating the potential to change the game for multiple industries spanning agriculture, public safety, construction and more.”

During this partnership, DJI is releasing a software development kit (SDK) for Windows that extends the power of commercial drone technology to the largest enterprise developer community in the world. 

How is this going to be made possible? Using applications written for Windows 10 PCs, DJI drones can be customized and controlled for a wide variety of industrial uses, with full flight control and real-time data transfer capabilities, making drone technology accessible to customers numbering nearly 700 million globally.

DJI has also selected Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud-computing partner. This selection will take advantage of Azure’s industry-leading AI and machine learning capabilities to help turn vast quantities of aerial imagery. Also this selection will assist with putting video data into actionable insights for thousands of businesses across the globe.

“DJI is excited to form this unique partnership with Microsoft to bring the power of DJI aerial platforms to the Microsoft developer ecosystem,” said Roger Luo, president, DJI. “Using our new SDK, Windows developers will soon be able to employ drones, AI and machine learning technologies to create intelligent flying robots that will save businesses time and money, and help make drone technology a mainstay in the workplace.”

Microsoft and DJI are collaborating to develop commercial drone solutions using Azure IoT Edge and AI technologies for customers in key vertical segments such as agriculture, construction and public safety. Windows developers will be able to use DJI drones alongside Azure’s extensive cloud and IoT toolset. This will assist in building AI solutions that are trained in the cloud and deployed down to drones in the field in real time, allowing businesses to quickly take advantage of the lessons at one individual site and rapidly apply them across the organization.




Edited by Ken Briodagh
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