Big cloud, bigger decisions: Microsoft's Edelman story

In the final epiosde of our special series highlighting the finalists of the 2026 Franz Edelman Award, members of the team from Microsoft share special insight on their project, which is transforming how global cloud infrastructure is supplied and delivered. As demand for cloud services continues to grow, the logistics behind delivering the hardware that powers data centers have become increasingly complex. To meet this challenge, Microsoft developed a platform – the Intelligent Fulfillment Service – that combines machine learning, mathematical optimization, and generative and agentic AI to automate global shipment