Agriculture data platform

Siemens partnered with Microsoft Azure to streamline manufacturing processes using Siemens Industrial Edge and Microsoft cloud solutions. This collaboration enables unified IT and OT integration, allowing manufacturers to deploy secure applications, optimize operations, and leverage AI-powered analytics. As part of Siemens Xcelerator initiative, manufacturers can now scale automation solutions efficiently, ensuring higher performance, reduced downtime, and improved overall quality.

Siemens manufacturing clientsManufacturing

Farmland LP, a major US farmland investment management company, received a significant investment from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund into its $250 million Vital Farmland III fund, supporting the conversion of conventional farmland into regenerative and sustainable agriculture.Operating over 18,500 acres across Washington, Oregon, and California, Farmland LP uses advanced technologies like satellite imaging, automated harvesting, and electronic monitoring to maximize the profitability and sustainability of its farmland portfolio.The investment will accelerate the development and acquisition of additional farmland and further expand soil carbon credit projects, helping Microsoft achieve its corporate carbon-negative goal.Farmland LP aims to generate a larger market for high-quality soil carbon credits in partnership with Microsoft and develop robust protocols for measuring and verifying regenerative ag practices, using systems such as Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard.This collaboration showcases the potential for corporates to drive nature-based solutions and incentivize growers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices.Farmland LP’s experience, biotechnology expertise, and partnerships, including fintech platforms, increase the accessibility and scaling of sustainable agriculture investments.Microsoft’s engagement validates Farmland LP’s approach and demonstrates feasibility for other growers and corporations to participate in the soil carbon credit ecosystem.

Farmland LPAgriculture

Planted, a Swiss startup, produces vegan meat alternatives based on peas and prioritizes sustainability in all aspects of production. Having grown from a test facility at ETH Zurich to supplying over 3,000 retail locations in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, Planted required scalable, secure IT infrastructure to support rapid expansion, transparency, and process optimization. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for end-to-end value chain management and Azure Cloud for data storage, integration, and analytics, Planted digitized core operations. The technical solution creates transparency, reduces waste, and enables informed, sustainable decisions across production, logistics, and sales. Backed by support from the Microsoft Startup Program and aligned sustainability goals with Microsoft, Planted continues to drive efficient processes and plans further growth into new markets like France.The data-driven approach supports efficient production, enhances data security, and maintains a competitive edge as the company builds toward international expansion.

PlantedConsumer & Food

SEGES Innovation, a subsidiary of the Danish Agriculture & Food Council, sought to provide agricultural professionals in Denmark with a unified, credible data reporting platform. The challenge stemmed from growing data volumes and fragmented reporting, affecting scalability and consistency. By implementing Power BI Embedded, SEGES Innovation developed semantic models and interactive dashboards that served as a single source of truth for agricultural data. These capabilities were integrated into a web portal, offering interactive, scalable reports for improved decision-making. The solution enables users across Denmark’s agricultural advisory sector to access tailored data visualizations and analysis, ensuring consistency and trust in business insight. Features such as object-level security, backup/restore, and seamless integration with existing infrastructure enhanced governance and resilience. Business users gained improved accessibility, interactivity, and the ability to make timely, informed decisions, creating measurable value for Denmark’s agriculture ecosystem.

SEGES InnovationAgriculture

Komatsu Australia, a leading machinery manufacturer, struggled with siloed data spread across multiple platforms, causing accessibility issues, delays, and operational inefficiencies. They embarked on a digital transformation journey to unify data sources, achieve real-time analytics, and empower both employees and customers with actionable information. The company chose TimeXtender Discovery Hub implemented on Microsoft Azure cloud, leveraging Azure SQL Database Managed Instance as a consolidated data store. Power BI was rolled out for business intelligence, providing dynamic dashboards for decision-making. This transformation has enabled significant cost and performance improvements, streamlined reporting, minimized risk of data errors, and improved clarity for management and staff. Telemetry data from over 30,000 active machines is now unified, enabling more advanced analytics and insights. Future plans include expanding AI predictive analytics and increasing mobile and desktop access to business intelligence.Data across multiple systems created delays and risked errors, making analysis slow and manually intensive. Stock and part reports that took up to 10 hours now run instantly, improving inventory management and transparency.Staff and customers now access unified, accurate information instantly, enabling better service and informed decision making. Komatsu’s platform now processes roughly a million records per day and scales as data volumes grow.Employees across the company are supported by Power BI dashboards, and customers benefit from insights derived from IoT telemetry data. Komatsu expects the new data platform to be a blueprint for global operations, with scalable Microsoft cloud services set to support decades of growth.

Komatsu AustraliaManufacturing

SoftBank Technology, in collaboration with Microsoft, developed The Agricultural Farmland Information System, a national-scale project to empower Japanese farmers and agricultural institutions to search for farmland availability across Japan securely and efficiently. The initiative was driven by the Japanese government's high demand for data security and compliance, setting new standards for public sector cloud adoption. Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM formed the core technology stack, with solutions tailored specifically for compliance with government security expectations. The move marked a significant breakthrough for cloud acceptance in Japanese public sector institutions, positively affecting 1,730 municipalities and national institutions, and serving as a blueprint for further cloud and AI adoption. The solution is also in consideration for international implementation in Africa and Southeast Asia, demonstrating its scalability and alignment with the global public sector's growing digitalization needs. SoftBank Technology continues to work closely with Microsoft to ensure their teams are at the forefront of technological adoption, leveraging deep expertise and a culture of innovation to expand impact. The government’s venture highlights the challenges and rewards of meeting unique public sector requirements, revealing new opportunities in untapped markets.

Japanese GovernmentAgriculture