Accenture on Friday said it has completed the acquisition of Bangalore-based Flutura to strengthen the company’s industrial artificial intelligence (AI) services for clients in the energy, chemicals, metals, mining, and pharmaceutical industries.

The IT services major has not disclosed the terms of the deal but Accenture has announced last week an investment of $3 billion over three years in data and artificial intelligence practice and an aim to double the headcount in the AI services to 80,000 through hiring, buyouts and training.

On Thursday, Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, said that no previous technology wave has captured the attention of industry leaders and general public as fast as generative AI.

“We are now embarking on the age of AI, and companies will need to reinvent how they operate with AI at the core…Think of it as the cloud over a decade ago. Foundation models and products based on them are still maturing with many products announced but fewer at general availability stage and ready for wide deployment.”

“Companies are coming to us for help with the strategy and the business case to understand how and where to apply AI and Gen AI specifically, to get their digital core in shape, to help assess which ecosystem partners and models to use, to rewire theirprocesses to be AI driven, to upgrade and reskill their talent with new ways of working and to navigate the risks and challenges responsibly,” she said.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services, the cloud services arm of Amazon, on Friday announced an investment of $100 million in a programme to connect AWS AI and machine learning experts with customers around the globe to design and launch generative AI products and services.

“The Generative AI innovation Center is part of our goal to help every organisation leverage AI by providing flexible, cost-effective generative AI services for enterprise...,” said Matt Garmanm senior vice president sales, marketing and global services at AWS.