Microsoft plans to donate $1 billion in cloud services over three years to nongovernmental organizations and researchers in a bid to provide access to these services to communities that can’t afford them.

The donation by Microsoft, the size of which has been calculated at fair market value, could also bring long-term business benefits, as it would help the company win over a number of potential long-term users to its cloud platform.

Among the questions being asked at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, is how to make the benefits of cloud technology available universally rather than let only wealthy societies have access to the data, intelligence, analytics and insights that come from cloud computing, wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a blog post Tuesday.

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