DXC Technologies Co. (NYSE: DXC), one of Greater Washington's largest public companies, said Friday it is working with tech giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Dutch transportation infrastructure firm Ferrovial SE to build a generative AI tool for organizations to use across business operations.
The new tool it's working on is called Quercus, which is the scientific name for oak.
Ashburn-based DXC said Ferrovial is already using an early version of the product, which includes an AI assistant supporting business activities like human resources, health and safety and cybersecurity. The company said the technology is designed for scalability in mind to permit "bespoke AI solutions" across enterprises.
"This agreement marks a milestone in the advancement of AI-supported business services," Howard Boville, DXC's executive vice president of consulting and engineering services, said in a statement.
Quercus runs on Microsoft's cloud computing platform Azure and is based on technology from OpenAI Global LLC. DXC said it's designed to be industry-agnostic to help organizations automate various processes. The Ashburn compamny will be responsible for updating, maintaining and commercializing Quercus.
Late last year, DXC parted ways with CEO Mike Salvino, who had been chief exec since 2019 and chairman since 2022. He helped oversee a restructuring at the IT-services provider, which employed 130,000 across its ranks in 2023. But the company has seen its revenue shrink. The company posted a big earnings miss in its fiscal 2024 first quarter, which ended in June 2023, and investors promptly wiped out $1.68 billion in market capitalization. He was replaced on an interim basis by veteran D.C. area exec Raul Fernandez, who was then given the job permanently in February.
On Thursday, DXC reported full-year earnings for its fiscal 2024, which ended March 31. The company posted $13.67 billion in revenue across the fiscal year, a 5.3% reduction from fiscal 2023. Net income improved to $86 million across fiscal 2024, up from a $566 million loss across the previous year.
But DXC also lowered its full-year earnings forecast to a range of $12.67 billion and $12.95 billion, down from an earlier estimate of $13.19 billion. That sent its share price tumbling down nearly 17% to $16.51 as of Friday's close. Its share price is down more than 30% across the last 12 months.
DXC posted $14.43 billion in revenue across 2022, making it the 11th-largest public company in Greater Washington, according to Washington Business Journal research.
DXC was formed in 2017 when Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. spun off its enterprise services business and merged it with Tysons-based Computer Sciences Corp. Salvino succeeded Mike Lawrie as its chief exec.
DXC is the latest of several local firms — and by far the largest — to have announced plans in recent weeks to build and deploy generative AI products, which can be used to create text, images, videos and other forms of content based on a prompt a person inputs into an interface.
Earlier this week, Arlington IT consulting firm Excella announced a private equity investment that will enable the company to offer generative AI tools to clients. Excella said this in-house technology could also allow it to pursue larger clients in the future. On May 3, McLean technology and management consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. launched a suite of free AI tools it says will protect sensitive data better than other leading AI platforms via an open-source framework.
