New Delhi, Jan 31 (IANS): To accelerate the digital transformation drive in the North-East, Microsoft on Thursday announced its plans on investing in the education transportation and utilities sectors in the region.

By leveraging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and data, the tech giant aims to enable better citizen service s in North East India, Microsoft India said in a statement.

As part of the initiative, the software giant has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Sikkim promising help to build new age tech capacity among students and faculty in government schools of the state.

Under the MoU, Microsoft will integrate IT content in the state board curriculum, conduct whole school reforms, grow digital literacy and build teacher capacity through the company programmes like Innovative Schools Programme, Educator Network and Innovative Educator Programme.

"E-governance is the best way to get the benefits of technology to all the residents of North East India and we believe the next step of growth will be to leverage the power of the Cloud, AI IoT and data," said Manish Prakash, General Manager, Public Sector, Microsoft India.

Microsoft has been deploying AI and Cloud computing solutions to transform services in different areas including education, agriculture and healthcare in India.

Microsoft is the only provider of services across all three clouds in the country - private, public and hybrid cloud and close to 150 government departments in India are powered by the Microsoft Cloud, the company added.