Mastercard and Microsoft have unveiled a collaboration to shape the future of digital commerce, drive start-up innovation, and enable financial inclusion. Such collaboration will promote Mastercard Labs' cloud native research and development activities, enabled by Azure and artificial intelligence (AI), to advance Mastercard Labs' mission to de-risk and commercialise emerging technologies and platforms for digital commerce. 'This strategic collaboration will strengthen and extend our cloud services and capabilities for clients and fintech partners, sparking innovation and creativity for the ecosystem. It will enable us to explore opportunities focused on new client segments, technologies and trends as we continue to drive financial inclusion and build the future of commerce,' said executive vice president and head of Mastercard Labs Ken Moore. Through access to technical expertise and cutting-edge technologies, Mastercard's partners will be further empowered to securely build and scale new solutions.