Big cloud, bigger decisions: Microsoft’s Edelman story

Published: April 12, 2026

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

Supply chains continue to get even more complex, you know, with the tariffs, with the traceability, the shortages. There's almost like in the last few years, every year we've got one or the other challenge and techniques like operations research are going to be, continue to be very important in our supply chain discipline. And with the, added advantage of AI, it's really the combination of these two things I think, will be the norm on how we will be applying, approaching these problems in the future.

Interviewed this episode:

Jeevan Pathuri

Microsoft

Jeevan Pathuri is a Vice President of software engineering for Microsoft’s Cloud Supply Chain, in the Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure division. He leads the development of large-scale distributed systems, machine learning, AI, and Agentic platforms for scaling supply chain operations through AI‑driven transformation. He leads cross‑functional teams that integrate advanced analytics, agentic AI, and automation into planning, logistics, and fulfillment systems. Jeevan has over 22 years of experience in software engineering industry with a master’s degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from San Jose State University. Before joining Microsoft, Jeevan developed complex distributed systems that form the backbone for Amazon’s Worldwide Retail Businesses.

Ishai Menache

Microsoft

Ishai Menache leads the Machine Learning and Optimization group at Microsoft Research, Redmond, with a focus on OptiGuide – Generative AI for optimization and decision intelligence, as well as high-impact initiatives to improve cloud and AI infrastructure efficiency.