In what is considered to be an industry first, Chevron, Schlumberger and Microsoft have announced a three-party collaboration to accelerate the development of petrotechnical and digital technologies.

DELFI is a stable, secure and open cloud-based environment for E&P software across the entire petrochemical lifecycle, including exploration, development and production. The three companies will work together to develop Azure-native applications in the DELFI environment.

The collaboration will roll out in three phases. In the first phase, the companies will deploy the Petrotechnical Suite within the DELFI environment. The second phase will involve deploying Azure-based, cloud-native applications, while the third phase will be centered around the development of a suite of cognitive computing capabilities across the entire E&P value chain.

All three companies are committed to ensuring their joint development efforts meet the latest security, performance and release management standards. In addition, the software will be compatible with the Open Subsurface Data Universe (OSDU) Data Platform, a standard data platform for the oil and gas industry. The OSDU’s stated goal is to ensure data is at the center of the industry, minimizing data silos.

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, touted the collaboration as “an enormous opportunity to bring the latest cloud and AI technology to the energy sector and accelerate the industry’s digital transformation. Our partnership with Schlumberger and Chevron delivers on this promise, applying the power of Azure to unlock new AI-driven insights that will help address some of the industry’s—the world’s—most important energy challenges, including sustainability.”