Today it was announced that GE will start using the power of Microsoft Azure to build powerful apps.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud services would form the backbone of the GE’s Predix service, forming part of a deeper partnership with GE.

GE Digital said that it will expand its capabilities at the edge so that customers can run analytics as close to the source of data as possible without having to worry about latency or limited connectivity.

The plan is for the Predix-Azure combination to expand into additional markets next year.