Cruise, G.M.’s autonomous driving unit, raises $2 billion from Microsoft and others.

Cruise, G.M.’s autonomous driving unit, raises $2 billion from Microsoft and others.

Cruise, G.M.'s autonomous driving unit, raises $2 billion from Microsoft and others.Cruise is developing self-driving vehicles for General Motors. A recent fund-raising round values the division at $30 billion.Credit...Paul Sancya/Associated PressBy Neal E. BoudetteMicrosoft has agreed to invest in the autonomous vehicle division of General Motors called Cruise in a bid to become a supplier of technology for self-driving cars.The software giant is participating in an investment round that will inject $2 billion into Cruise. G.M. and Honda are also participating in this round, which values the business at $30 billion.“Microsoft, as the gold standard in the trustworthy democratization of technology, will be a force multiplier for us as we commercialize our fleet of self-driving, all-electric, shared vehicles,” Cruise's chief executive, Dan Ammann, said in a statement.As part of the partnership, G.M. has agreed to use Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing service to manage and provide data services related to autonomous cars.Cruise is developing vehicles that G.M. hopes to use in driverless taxi and delivery services, though it is not clear how soon the company will begin such services. The automaker, Tesla and other companies have fallen behind the schedules they once offered for having large commercial fleets of autonomous cars on