BHP signs agreements with AWS, Azure

Mining giant BHP has signed long-term agreements with cloud leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

The company said the cloud technology would help improve safety, productivity, and reliability across its globally operated assets.

AWS will power BHP’s digital transformation efforts by providing capabilities in data analytics and machine learning to deploy digital solutions globally to improve operational performance.

Azure will host BHP’s global applications portfolio to enable the company to leverage existing Microsoft licences and SAP applications portfolio, while also helping reduce its reliance on regional data centres.

Microsoft will also work alongside BHP’s system integrators Accenture, Infosys and Cognizant, as well as SAP.

BHP chief technical officer Laura Tyler said collaborating with the cloud giants highlighted the importance of cloud to support BHP’s digital transformation.

“Digital technology is in everything we do at BHP, from how we connect to our customers and partners every day to how we extract and find resources more safely and sustainably,” Tyler said.

“We are leveraging next generation technologies like cloud, machine learning, and data analytics to solve complex business problems and unlock value even faster.”

Tyler added that cloud is BHP’s foundation for its upcoming plans as the technology would enable the company to deploy digital solutions to the frontline quickly and at scale. Cloud would also reduce the amount of hardware on sites, as well as costs.

“We are thrilled to have AWS and Microsoft on board to ensure we have a strong foundation to accelerate our digital transformation plans and lift capability across the business,” she said.

In a separate announcement, AWS vice president of engineering Bill Vass said, “We’re excited to expand our collaboration with BHP and support them to become a more efficient and data-driven resources company.”

“With AWS, BHP can put their vast global data to work, helping the company make the best possible decisions and better respond to market changes, while upskilling employees to prepare for the digital workforce. AWS is pleased to help BHP further drive efficiencies in their operations and set up the company for continued global success using the cloud.”

Microsoft executive vice president of Worldwide Commercial Business Judson Althoff said, “Our partnership with BHP will accelerate the company’s cloud journey, improve enterprise agility and security, and advance its sustainability commitments through better data insights.”