tech:

taffy

IBM, Lufthansa Ink $1.25B Outsourcing Deal

Lufthansa

IBM has signed a seven-year $1.25 billion outsourcing contract to deliver IT infrastructure services for Lufthansa. According to the agreement, IBM will optimize the airline’s IT processes, which is expected to generate an estimated cost savings by an average of approximately $87.65 million annually for Lufthansa. Over the life of the contract, IBM is also expected to bring new solutions that incorporate business analytics with mobile computing and social businesses.

IBM will begin the multi-stage transformation of the Lufthansa IT landscape by implementing collaboration and messaging tools for social business, new network and voice services, an optimized electronic workplace solution and IBM’s security framework, says Big Blue. As part of the outsourcing agreement, IBM will also manage Lufthansa Systems’ entire data center operations, help desk and printer services along with individual infrastructure services.

Around 1,400 Lufthansa Systems employees will transfer to IBM. Infrastructure services are scheduled to begin from IBM on April 1, 2015.

[Image courtesy: Lufthansa]

Just in

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.