The technology group Cronos from Kontich has signed a two-digit million contract with Microsoft for the rollout and management of Azure cloud services. This is the largest deal Cronos has ever signed with the American company.

Three years ago, De Cronos Groep entered into an agreement with Microsoft for the first time. At that time it was about a multi-year data center optimization. The new deal is three times larger, making Cronos Microsoft’s Belgian “Partner of the Year.” Of Cronos’ 9,000 employees, 1,400 work on Microsoft services. About 500 to 600 of those employees are focused on Azure.

The agreement, which runs until the end of 2025, gives Cronos access to exclusive programs, tools and experts from Microsoft. “This gives us even more know-how when it comes to setting up, managing and operating cloud environments,” says Dirk Deroost, co-owner of De Cronos Groep, in an interview with De Tijd.

Interest in cloud services is growing rapidly

Speaking to De Tijd, Jochen van Gasse, Head of Microsoft Business and Innovation at Cronos, confirms that all industries are adopting the cloud at an accelerated rate. Government agencies are not left behind either. For example, both the federal and the Flemish government are customers of the company.

Cronos sees its cloud business at Microsoft growing 80 percent a year. According to Van Gasse, security services in the cloud are in particularly high demand. Cronos now employs more than 300 security professionals, but the new deal with Microsoft will create many more jobs.

In addition to the growing interest in the cloud, Cronos also sees a rapidly increasing demand for services related to OpenAI. Azure OpenAI allows programmers to build software using ChatGPT and other advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models. In an interview with De Tijd, Van Gasse confirms that generative AI applications are now becoming very concrete for many of the company’s customers.

Microsoft strengthens position in Belgium with new data centers and encryption solution

To further strengthen its position in Belgium, Microsoft is building three new data centers around Brussels. This is a major project worth more than a billion euros. In addition, the software giant recently released a “confidential computing” solution. With this new technology, customers can encrypt their data in such a way that even Microsoft cannot access it. The technology is attracting great interest from the public and financial sectors.