microsoft virtual data centre tour

Inside A Microsoft Data Center: Virtual Tour Showcases Cloud Innovation

Microsoft is offering the world a look inside its cloud data centers with a new virtual tour , an immersive experience that provides a walk-through of simulated data halls, network rooms, and operations equipment yards. The tour brings together audio, video, data cards and a simulated ata center environment to provide Internet visitors with a glimpse of the infrastructure that powers Microsoft’s cloud operations.

Microsoft joins the many data center service providers that have created virtual tours to provide remote access to facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many companies have sharply limited physical tours of their facilities. Tours have traditionally been a critical part of the data center provisioning process, giving customers the ability to see the space where their IT equipment will live and confirm the security and reliability of the facility.

For Microsoft, the goal of the virtual tour is to explain the physical infrastructure supporting its cloud services, which support many consumer services as well as IT hosting. The virtual data center experience is built in Unreal, and is a likeness of the current Microsoft data center design used in its Quincy, Washington campus.

“(The Cloud) is not nebulous magic, nor is it a single supercomputer,” a narrator explains in an introductory video. “The cloud is a globally interconnected network of millions of computers in datacenters around the world that work together to store and manage data, run applications and deliver content and services.”

For data center enthusiasts, the highlight will likely be the videos that bring viewers inside the server rooms:

The tour provides an opportunity to showcase its innovation in the data center, including video overviews of its projects to develop underwater data centers , DNA data storage , liquid immersion cooling and quantum computing. That includes a rendering of its Project Natick data module sitting on the ocean floor off the shore of Scotland.

The Microsoft Project Natick module takes edge compouting to the bottom of the ocean. (Image: Microsoft)

At Data Center Frontier we’ve been tracking the progress of data center virtual tours for years, including early adopters like RagingWire in 2016 and Google’s periodic updates on its data center tours .

For more, check out Microsoft’s virtual tour and accompanying blog post .

Microsoft Datacenter Tour: Virtual Experience

Additional resources.

The Microsoft Cloud has over 4 million servers containing over 40 million hard disk and solid state storage media drives, totaling over 40 exabytes of storage capacity.

Server capacity

The Microsoft Cloud is used by 95% of Fortune 500 companies. It supports hundreds of millions of Microsoft Teams users, and tens of billions of AI and machine learning transactions each month.

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Microsoft ensures integrity and security of servers through various stages in their lifecycle, from manufacturing to retirement.

Server Blades

Anatomy of a server room, fire safety.

State-of-the-art fire suppression systems use gases to extinguish flames, avoiding the collateral damage of traditional water sprinklers.

The Server Room

The server room is the heart of the Microsoft Cloud's massive computing and storage capacity. Innovative server blades, designed and built under Project Olympus, Microsoft's next-generation model for open-source cloud hardware, deliver capabilities for virtual machines, AI and machine learning, and even full platform services like Microsoft 365.

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#network-room .cls-1,#network-room .cls-2,#network-room .cls-3,#network-room .cls-4{fill:#01e69c;}#network-room .cls-1,#network-room .cls-3,#network-room .cls-4{fill-rule:evenodd;}#network-room .cls-1{opacity:0.25;}#network-room .cls-4{opacity:0.3;} the network room the  network room, #server-room .cls-1,#server-room .cls-2,#server-room .cls-3,#server-room .cls-4{fill:#1c99ff;}#server-room .cls-1,#server-room .cls-3,#server-room .cls-4{fill-rule:evenodd;}#server-room .cls-1{opacity:0.25;}#server-room .cls-4{opacity:0.3;} the server room the  server room, #operations-room .cls-1,#operations-room .cls-2,#operations-room .cls-3{fill:#ce2dff;fill-rule:evenodd;}#operations-room .cls-1{opacity:0.25;}#operations-room .cls-3{opacity:0.3;} the operations room the  mechanical area, #innovation-room .cls-1,#innovation-room .cls-2,#innovation-room .cls-3{fill:#48e4ff;}#innovation-room .cls-1,#innovation-room .cls-3{fill-rule:evenodd;}#innovation-room .cls-1{opacity:0.25;}#innovation-room .cls-3{opacity:0.3;} the innovation room the  innovation room, .st0-monitor{opacity:0.25;fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;fill:#009dff;enable-background:new ;} .st1-monitor{fill:#1c99ff;} .st2-monitor{fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;fill:#1c99ff;} the  operations room, .st0{opacity:0.25;fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;fill:#009dff;enable-background:new ;} .st1{fill:#0097ff;} .st2{fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;fill:#0097ff;} .st3{fill:#1c99ff;} the  circular center.

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Inside A Microsoft Data Center: Virtual Tour Showcases Cloud Innovation

Microsoft is offering the world a look inside its cloud data centers with a new virtual tour, an immersive experience that provides a walk-through of simulated data halls, network rooms, and equipment yards..

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Leaked presentation reveals Microsoft's astounding plan to ramp up data-center capacity for the AI boom

• Microsoft's data-center capacity jumped in recent quarters, a leaked internal presentation shows.
• The company is planning even faster data-center growth in the coming quarters.
• Microsoft delivered "record-level GPU capacity," according to the presentation.

Microsoft significantly expanded its data-center capacity recently and plans to ramp up growth to astounding levels going forward, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider.

Since July 2023, the start of Microsoft's latest fiscal year, the company delivered more than 500 megawatts of new data-center capacity , the document disclosed.

This document was part of a confidential slide deck from the company's Cloud Operations and Innovation team that was presented earlier this year.

Under the heading "Commercial Cloud and AI Demands: Fueling our Expansion," the document said Microsoft surpassed 5 gigawatts of total data-center installed capacity in the first half of its latest fiscal year.

The rise of generative artificial intelligence and huge foundation models is fueling a new data-center boom . Microsoft is leading the way through its partnership with OpenAI , the startup behind ChatGPT and GPT-4 .

These AI models need to be trained on mountains of data and then fine-tuned intensely. That takes thousands of GPUs and a pile of other related gear that's housed in huge data centers. These facilities use so much power that their capacity is measured in megawatts and gigawatts of electricity.

Shaolei Ren , an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of California, Riverside, said Microsoft's 5 gigawatts of installed data-center capacity, if fully used, would be equivalent to Hong Kong or Portugal's annual electricity consumption.

"Astonishing speed"

It doesn't stop there. The software giant laid out even more radical growth plans for its data-center empire in the document obtained by BI.

Related stories

"With a strong Commercial Cloud business, our goal is clear," Microsoft said in this part of the slide presentation.

Microsoft wants to double new data-center capacity in the second half of its fiscal year. This runs from early 2024 to the middle of this year.

In the first half of Microsoft's 2025 fiscal year, which runs from early July through the end of 2024, the company aims to "achieve 3x growth" in new data-center capacity.

This requires Microsoft to deliver more than 200 megawatts in data-center capacity every month.

"This is an astonishing speed," Ren told BI. "This is a very large data-center capacity."

Ren said Microsoft's capacity plans suggested the company was either seeing huge demand or simply wanting to stay competitive by securing future power capacity that otherwise might be taken by competitors.

He added that this also raised questions about the environmental consequences of adding such a large data-center footprint, given the carbon emissions and water consumption of the facilities.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment.

'Record-level GPU capacity'

The company is also securing a record number of GPUs to handle new AI workloads in data centers.

In the second half of last year, Microsoft delivered "record-level GPU capacity," more than doubling its total installed GPU base, the document said, without mentioning actual numbers.

Microsoft's GPU footprint expanded into 39 additional data centers in this period, and the company now has "AI clusters" live in 98 locations globally.

Contact the reporter, Eugene Kim, via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram ( +1-650-942-3061 ) or email ( [email protected] ). Reach out using a nonwork device. Check out Business Insider's source guide for other tips on sharing information securely.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: How tech layoffs could affect the economy

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Microsoft Research Blog

Microsoft at nsdi 2024: discoveries and implementations in networked systems.

Published April 16, 2024

By Ranveer Chandra , Managing Director, Research for Industry

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Networked systems and their applications are essential in building the reliable, scalable, secure, and innovative infrastructure required to meet society’s evolving needs. One of the premier events in this field, the 21 st USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (opens in new tab) (NSDI ‘24), provides a platform for researchers and experts to share insights, present research findings, and collaborate on the latest advances in the design, implementation, and evaluation of networked and distributed systems.

Microsoft is honored to support NSDI ‘24 as a returning sponsor. This partnership underscores our commitment to fostering innovation and research within the field. Additionally, members of our team have taken on key roles in organizing the event, including contributions to the program committee and leadership as conference co-chair.

We are pleased to announce that 19 papers from Microsoft researchers and their partners have been accepted to the conference, including a paper on Autothrottle, a resource management framework, which won the Outstanding Paper Award. These papers represent a broad spectrum of research topics, ranging from 5G, space, datacenters, and wide-area networking to applications in artificial intelligence, security, video conferencing, and gaming. They encompass both early-stage research and systems already deployed in production. This post highlights some of this work.

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AI Frontiers: AI for health and the future of research with Peter Lee

Peter Lee, head of Microsoft Research, and Ashley Llorens, AI scientist and engineer, discuss the future of AI research and the potential for GPT-4 as a medical copilot.

Paper highlights

Autothrottle: a practical bi-level approach to resource management for slo-targeted microservices.

Outstanding Paper Award

As cloud applications increasingly adopt microservices, resource managers face two distinct levels of system behavior: end-to-end application latency and per-service resource usage. To coordinate them, this research introduces Autothrottle, a bi-level resource management framework for microservices with latency service-level objectives (SLOs). Autothrottle employs an application-wide learning-based controller to periodically set performance targets—expressed as CPU throttle ratios—for per-service heuristic controllers to achieve. When tested using production workloads, Autothrottle demonstrated higher CPU savings and fewer SLO violations than the best performing baseline from Kubernetes. 

Application-Level Service Assurance with 5G RAN Slicing

This paper presents Zipper, an innovative Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing system that provides application-specific throughput and latency. Traditional methods focus on overall slice performance, often neglecting individual app needs, leading to optimization challenges. Zipper addresses this by adopting a model-predictive control approach, precisely managing network use per user with an advanced algorithm for optimal bandwidth allocation. Additionally, it offers a tool for network operators to assess the feasibility of new applications without exceeding capacity.

Spectrumize: Spectrum-efficient Satellite Networks for the Internet of Things

Low Earth Orbit satellite networks offer a promising way to connect low-power IoT devices globally without terrestrial gateways, using cost-effective pico-satellites. This paper addresses the communication challenges these networks face, such as limited link budgets, satellite movement, and signal interference. It introduces a novel technique using the Doppler shift-from-satellite motion to improve packet detection and decoding, even with low signal-to-noise ratios or during packet collisions. This method, called Spectrumize, achieves a threefold increase in packet detection and over 80 percent accuracy in decoding, significantly outperforming conventional methods.

Solving Max-Min Fair Resource Allocations Quickly on Large Graphs

This paper tackles the problem of max-min fair resource allocation, crucial for WAN traffic engineering and cluster scheduling, especially as scale increases. This research streamlines the process into a single rapid optimization task to accommodate multi-path scenarios. Tests show that these algorithms surpass previous methods, delivering quicker, fairer, and more efficient allocations. Implemented in Azure’s WAN traffic engineering, these methods not only retain solution quality but also achieve about a threefold increase in processing speed.

Finding Adversarial Inputs for Heuristics using Multi-level Optimization

Production systems often employ heuristics because they are faster and scale better than their optimal counterparts. However, practitioners may not be aware of the performance differences between a heuristic and the optimal solution, or between two heuristics, in real-world scenarios. MetaOpt addresses this by enabling direct comparison of heuristics against optimal solutions or other heuristics. It efficiently processes inputs for a solver to identify performance gaps and generate adversarial inputs that expose these differences, scaling effectively to real-world problems.

NetVigil: Robust and Low-Cost Anomaly Detection for East-West Data Center Security

This research introduces NetVigil, an advanced anomaly-detection system that monitors east-west traffic in datacenters. It uses graph-based features from network flows and utilizes graph neural networks (GNNs) along with contrastive learning to improve its effectiveness against both common and sophisticated threats. When tested across multiple attack scenarios and real-world data, NetVigil significantly outperformed existing anomaly detection solutions in accuracy, cost-efficiency, and speed, offering a viable addition to safeguard data center traffic.

Complete list of accepted publications by Microsoft researchers

ADR-X: ANN-Assisted Wireless Link Rate Adaptation for Compute-Constrained Embedded Gaming Devices Hao Yin, University of Washington; Murali Ramanujam, Princeton University; Joe Schaefer, Stan Adermann, Srihari Narlanka, and Perry Lea, Microsoft; Ravi Netravali, Princeton University;  Krishna Chintalapudi , Microsoft Research

Application-Level Service Assurance with 5G RAN Slicing Arjun Balasingam, MIT CSAIL;  Manikanta Kotaru and Victor Bahl , Microsoft Research

Autothrottle: A Practical Bi-Level Approach to Resource Management for SLO-Targeted Microservices Zibo Wang, University of Science and Technology of China and Microsoft Research; Pinghe Li, ETH Zurich;  Chieh-Jan Mike Liang , Microsoft Research; Feng Wu, University of Science and Technology of China;  Francis Y. Yan , Microsoft Research

CHISEL: An optical slice of the wide-area network Abhishek Vijaya Kumar, Cornell University; Bill Owens, NYSERnet;  Nikolaj Bjørner , Binbin Guan, Yawei Yin, and Victor Bahl , Microsoft; Rachee Singh, Cornell University

Cloud-LoRa: Enabling Cloud Radio Access LoRa Networks Using Reinforcement Learning Based Bandwidth-Adaptive Compression Muhammad Osama Shahid, Daniel Koch, Jayaram Raghuram, and Bhuvana Krishnaswamy, University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Krishna Chintalapudi , Microsoft Research; Suman Banerjee, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Cyclops: A Nanomaterial-based, Battery-Free Intraocular Pressure (IOP) Monitoring System inside Contact Lens Liyao Li, University at Buffalo SUNY and Northwest University; Bozhao Shang and Yun Wu, Northwest University and Shaanxi International Joint Research Centre for the Battery-Free Internet of Things;  Jie Xiong , University of Massachusetts Amherst and Microsoft Research Asia; Xiaojiang Chen, Northwest University and Shaanxi International Joint Research Centre for the Battery-Free Internet of Things; Yaxiong Xie, University at Buffalo SUNY

ExChain: Exception Dependency Analysis for Root Cause Diagnosis Ao Li, Carnegie Mellon University;  Shan Lu , Microsoft Research and University of Chicago;  Suman Nath , Microsoft Research; Rohan Padhye and Vyas Sekar, Carnegie Mellon University

Finding Adversarial Inputs for Heuristics using Multi-level Optimization Pooria Namyar, Microsoft and University of Southern California;  Behnaz Arzani and Ryan Beckett , Microsoft; Santiago Segarra, Microsoft and Rice University;  Himanshu Raj and Umesh Krishnaswamy, Microsoft; Ramesh Govindan, University of Southern California;  Srikanth Kandula , Microsoft

Gemino: Practical and Robust Neural Compression for Video Conferencing Vibhaalakshmi Sivaraman, Pantea Karimi, Vedantha Venkatapathy, and Mehrdad Khani, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;  Sadjad Fouladi , Microsoft Research; Mohammad Alizadeh, Frédo Durand, and Vivienne Sze, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

GRACE: Loss-Resilient Real-Time Video through Neural Codecs Yihua Cheng, Ziyi Zhang, Hanchen Li, Anton Arapin, and Yue Zhang, The University of Chicago; Qizheng Zhang, Stanford University; Yuhan Liu, Kuntai Du, and Xu Zhang, The University of Chicago;  Francis Y. Yan , Microsoft; Amrita Mazumdar, NVIDIA; Nick Feamster and Junchen Jiang, The University of Chicago

LitePred: Transferable and Scalable Latency Prediction for Hardware-Aware Neural Architecture Search Chengquan Feng, University of Science and Technology of China;  Li Lyna Zhang , Microsoft Research; Yuanchi Liu, University of Science and Technology of China;  Jiahang Xu and Chengruidong Zhang , Microsoft Research; Zhiyuan Wang, University of Science and Technology of China;  Ting Cao and Mao Yang , Microsoft Research; Haisheng Tan, University of Science and Technology of China

Making Kernel Bypass Practical for the Cloud with Junction Joshua Fried and Gohar Irfan Chaudhry, MIT CSAIL;  Enrique Saurez , Esha Choukse , and Íñigo Goiri , Azure Research – Systems;  Sameh Elnikety , Microsoft Research;  Rodrigo Fonseca , Azure Research – Systems; Adam Belay, MIT CSAIL

MESSI: Behavioral Testing of BGP Implementations Rathin Singha and Rajdeep Mondal, University of California Los Angeles;  Ryan Beckett , Microsoft;  Siva Kesava Reddy Kakarla , Microsoft Research; Todd Millstein and George Varghese, University of California Los Angeles

NetVigil: Robust and Low-Cost Anomaly Detection for East-West Data Center Security Kevin Hsieh , Microsoft; Mike Wong, Princeton University and Microsoft; Santiago Segarra, Microsoft and Rice University;  Sathiya Kumaran Mani , Trevor Eberl , and Anatoliy Panasyuk, Microsoft; Ravi Netravali, Princeton University;  Ranveer Chandra and Srikanth Kandula , Microsoft

OPPerTune: Post-Deployment Configuration Tuning of Services Made Easy Gagan Somashekar, Stony Brook University;  Karan Tandon and Anush Kini , Microsoft Research; Chieh-Chun Chang and Petr Husak, Microsoft; Ranjita Bhagwan, Google;  Mayukh Das , Microsoft365 Research; Anshul Gandhi, Stony Brook University;  Nagarajan Natarajan , Microsoft Research

Sequence Abstractions for Flexible, Line-Rate Network Monitoring Andrew Johnson, Princeton University;  Ryan Beckett , Microsoft Research; Xiaoqi Chen, Princeton University; Ratul Mahajan, University of Washington; David Walker, Princeton University

Solving Max-Min Fair Resource Allocations Quickly on Large Graphs Pooria Namyar, Microsoft and University of Southern California;  Behnaz Arzani and Srikanth Kandula , Microsoft; Santiago Segarra, Microsoft and Rice University; Daniel Crankshaw and Umesh Krishnaswamy, Microsoft; Ramesh Govindan, University of Southern California;  Himanshu Raj , Microsoft

Spectrumize: Spectrum-efficient Satellite Networks for the Internet of Things Vaibhav Singh, Tusher Chakraborty , and Suraj Jog , Microsoft Research; Om Chabra and Deepak Vasisht, UIUC;  Ranveer Chandra , Microsoft Research

Vulcan: Automatic Query Planning for Live ML Analytics Yiwen Zhang and Xumiao Zhang, University of Michigan;  Ganesh Ananthanarayanan , Microsoft; Anand Iyer, Georgia Institute of Technology; Yuanchao Shu, Zhejiang University;  Victor Bahl , Microsoft Research; Z. Morley Mao, University of Michigan and Google; Mosharaf Chowdhury, University of Michigan

Symposium organizers from Microsoft

Program committee co-chair.

Irene Zhang

Program Committee

Paolo Costa Anuj Kalia Amar Phanishayee Dan Ports Francis Yan  

Mentoring Co-Chair

Test of time awards committee.

Jay Lorch Amar Phanishayee

Steering Committee

Related publications, cyclops: a nanomaterial-based, battery-free intraocular pressure (iop) monitoring system inside contact lens, vulcan: automatic query planning for live ml analytics, gemino: practical and robust neural compression for video conferencing, making kernel bypass practical for the cloud with junction, parcae: proactive, liveput-optimized dnn training on preemptible instances, adr-x: ann-assisted wireless link rate adaptation for compute-constrained embedded gaming devices, cloud-lora: enabling cloud radio access lora networks using reinforcement learning based bandwidth-adaptive compression, grace: loss-resilient real-time video through neural codecs, litepred: transferable and scalable latency prediction for hardware-aware neural architecture search, messi: behavioral testing of bgp implementations, sequence abstractions for flexible, line-rate network monitoring, chisel: an optical slice of the wide-area network, oppertune: post-deployment configuration tuning of services made easy, exchain: exception dependency analysis for root cause diagnosis, meet the authors.

Ranveer Chandra

Managing Director, Research for Industry

Continue reading

Abstracts: April 16, 2024

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Microsoft aims to triple datacenter capacity to fuel AI boom

And it's far from the only hyperscaler getting in on the act.

Microsoft is looking to significantly expand datacenter space to service expected AI demand, tripling the rate at which it adds capacity early in its next financial year. Other hyperscalers appear to be following suit.

Booming interest in foundation models and generative AI is causing a dramatic rise in demand for extra compute power, as is the interest in training ever-larger models.

According to documents seen by Insider , Microsoft is preparing to address this by doubling new build Azure capacity in the second half of this fiscal year, which runs to the end of June.

Not content with this, Microsoft is going to step up a gear and go for 3x growth in additional datacenter capacity in the first half of its fiscal 2025.

The documents also make clear that Microsoft is "securing a record number of GPUs" to handle AI workloads, and more than doubled its total installed base of the accelerators during the second half of last year.

We asked Microsoft to comment.

The megacorp had already flagged last year that it intends to spend "many billions of dollars" on building extra capacity in anticipation of a rapid uptick in customers wanting to run generative AI projects.

Earlier this year, a job ad spied by The Register for someone to source real estate for Microsoft's cloud infrastructure hinted at significant expansion plans for its datacenter footprint in the Asia Pacific region.

It isn't just Redmond that is stepping up its datacenter capacity. A new report from Synergy Research Group indicates it has taken just four years for the total capacity of facilities operated by hyperscalers to double, and it forecasts that this total capacity will double again within the next four years.

• Global IT spending forecast to reach $5.0T this year
• Google will pump more than $100B into AI, says DeepMind boss
• Blackstone wants to plug hyperscale datacenter into former Britishvolt battery site
• Digital Realty ditches diesel for salad dressing in US to cut datacenter emissions

The number of datacenters operated by hyperscale providers has now passed the thousand mark for the first time, but the average capacity of new builds is also growing, we're told.

Synergy said that while it expects each year ahead to see 120-130 additional hyperscale datacenters come online, capacity growth will be driven increasingly by the larger scale of those new bit barns, with generative AI cited as the prime reason for that increase in size.

As of the end of 2023, Synergy's figures showed that the US accounted for 51 percent of global capacity, as measured by MW of critical IT load, with Europe on 17 percent and China close behind with 16 percent.

The companies with the biggest footprint are - unsurprisingly - the big three cloud providers (Amazon, Microsoft, and Google). These account for 60 percent of all hyperscale datacenter capacity, followed by Meta, Alibaba, Tencent, Apple, ByteDance, then other relatively small hyperscale operators.

Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale said that while the number of hyperscale datacenters and their average size are on the increase, there is a lot of complexity and nuance behind the numbers.

"Generally speaking, self-owned datacenters are much bigger than leased facilities, and datacenters in the home country of a hyperscaler are much bigger than its international facilities," he said.

Although core datacenters are getting ever bigger, there is also an increasing array of smaller bit barns being deployed in order to push infrastructure closer to customers, he claimed. ®

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“ With our plan to be fully on Azure by the end of 2023, we’ll likely achieve savings of 1,194,778 kilograms of CO2 from 2024 onward, which is an approximate 90 percent reduction compared with running all of our infrastructure on-premises. ”

Mudassar Ulhaq, Chief Information Officer of Waverton Investment Management

Reliability

The Microsoft network connects more than 60 datacenter regions, 200 datacenters, 190 points of presence, and over 175,000 miles of terrestrial and subsea fiber worldwide, which connects to the rest of the internet at strategic global edge points of presence.

“ Ensuring end-to-end reliability and resiliency is a team effort. We get the tools from Azure, and we set up the systems and processes to put it all together. ”

Tom Harris, Chief Technology Officer of Clear.Bank

We offer an industry-leading cloud platform with the most comprehensive compliance coverage available today that enables our users to own their data, control it, and choose where it’s located—all backed by in-depth security that keeps their data safe.

“ We’re seeing a huge benefit in terms of scalability. We build out resources in the cloud as we need them, in a way that would have been impossible in a physical datacenter. We also trust in the security of Azure, which is important for any business site. ”

Sarah Haywood, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Technology Carlsberg Group

We are constantly pushing the boundaries of technological advancements to our services and our cloud infrastructure so our users can do more with less.

“ Only Microsoft offered the proven, cutting-edge technologies and models that have been trained on Microsoft data sets on a very large scale and are available completely disconnected … All of this accelerates our time to market, and that has been the key differentiator for us. ”

Marcel Rummens, Product Owner of Internal AI Platform

Latest news

Microsoft supports cloud infrastructure demand in Europe

Fit for the AI age: Microsoft is investing 3.2 billion euros to more than double AI infrastructure and cloud capacities in Germany and to train skilled workers

Advancing application reliability with performance testing in Azure

Microsoft Cloud enables customers to keep all personal data within European Data Boundary

MICROSOFT EXPANDS DIGITAL FOOTPRINT IN QUEBEC WITH USD$500 MILLION INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE AND SKILLING INITIATIVES

Microsoft’s Cloud Region in Italy Continues to Expand to Accelerate the Country’s Digital Innovation

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Regional news

Microsoft doubles the capacity of the Azure Cloud in Germany

Unlocking global government innovation with Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty

Sustainable digital transformation at Rolls Royce

As the world transitions to a net zero carbon future, the industries in which iconic British brand Rolls-Royce operates are some of the most critical – but they are also some of the hardest to abate.

Cloud Cultures, Part 2: Global collaboration in Sweden

The outcomes of cloud adoption are shaped dramatically by the people and cultures that operate and innovate with the technology. The rapid pace of technological advancements we are seeing on a global scale is exciting, b

Cloud Cultures, Part 1: Resilience and innovation lessons from Poland

Corey Sanders Blog: Cloud Cultures Episode 1: Poland

Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of its first cloud region in Italy, providing Italian organizations access to scalable, available and resilient cloud services and confirming its commitment to promoting digi

Microsoft launches its first datacenter region in Poland, bringing new opportunities to develop the digital economy

Microsoft announced the opening of its newest trusted cloud region, the first in Central and Eastern Europe, located in Poland.

Microsoft announces intent to expand cloud regions through Saudi Arabia datacenter

The announcement is part of the company’s continued efforts to empower public and private organizations around the world with intelligent, trusted, and enterprise-grade cloud services to realize their digital transformat

H.M. the King receives in audience the management team of Microsoft to learn the details of the upcoming opening of its Cloud Region in Spain

S.M. el Rey ha recibido esta mañana en audiencia a Cindy Rose, presidenta de Microsoft Western Europe, Alberto Granados, presidente de Microsoft España, y al Comité de Dirección de la compañía en un encuentro en el que s

Cloud boom in Germany: Microsoft expands computing power in the Frankfurt Azure region

Laut dem Cloud-Monitor 2022 von Bitkom Research im Auftrag von KPMG nutzen inzwischen 84 Prozent der deutschen Unternehmen Cloud-Dienste, und 13 Prozent planen den Weg in die Cloud. Lediglich für drei Prozent der Unterne

Microsoft opens Asia’s first Datacenter Academy in Singapore with ITE

Microsoft today announced the launch of its first Datacenter Academy (DCA) in Asia. Located in Singapore and created in partnership with ITE, the DCA is a five-year commitment to empower some 300 ITE students with a focu

Microsoft expands cloud services in South African datacenters to drive growth and competitiveness

Johannesburg and Cape Town—Microsoft has now made Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform generally available in its enterprise-grade datacentres in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Data centers – important in today’s society

Alla dessa exempel – tillsammans med oändligt många fler ögonblick som utgör vår vardag – kan ske tack vare datacenter. Från utsidan ser de endast ut som lagerlokaler, men innanför väggarna finns tiotusentals sammankoppl

Microsoft has now made Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform generally available in its enterprise-grade datacentres in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Commercial and public sector organizations continue to look for new ways to advance their goals, improve efficiencies, and create positive employee experiences.

Microsoft expands Dynamics 365 and Power Platform infrastructure in Brazil

No mês que marca os dois anos do lançamento do Microsoft Mais Brasil, plano abrangente anunciado em outubro de 2020, com o objetivo de contribuir para promover o crescimento social e econômico do país, a Microsoft anunci

Microsoft invites students to its data centers—in Minecraft

Molnet är ett globalt sammankopplat nätverk av miljontals datorer som arbetar tillsammans för att lagra och hantera data, köra program och leverera innehåll och tjänster.

Microsoft’s data center becomes one of the world’s greenest

Microsofts datacentre er langt mere energieffektive og CO2-besparende end traditionelle datacentre.

Demand for local and resilient cloud capabilities keeps growing: Here’s how Microsoft is bringing more options to Australia and New Zealand

The cloud plays an increasingly significant role in our lives. It enables remote work and learning, global collaboration, business continuity, discovery and innovation, and the powering of critical life and safety servic

Microsoft expands with datacenter availability zones in Norway

As businesses move more of their workloads to the cloud, business continuity, data protection, and resiliency have become more important than ever.

Opening doors to a sustainable future with Microsoft’s Circular Center in Singapore

Another step toward eliminating electronic waste and responding to the needs of our planet.

Microsoft opens first global datacenter region in Qatar, bringing new opportunities for a cloud-first economy

Microsoft announced the launch of its new datacenter region in Qatar, marking a major milestone for Microsoft as the first hyperscale cloud provider to deliver enterprise-grade services in the country.

Microsoft launches Azure Availability Zones to heighten competitiveness of UAE organizations

Microsoft announces the general availability of Azure Availability Zones to be delivered via its UAE datacentres in Dubai.

Microsoft takes another key step to reduce data centre emissions in ANZ

Microsoft partners with sustainable electricity retailer Ecotricity to ensure our new datacentre region in New Zealand is powered by 100 per cent carbon-free energy when it launches.

Conscious cloud: our Aotearoa datacenter pledge Microsoft’s datacenter region powered by 100 percent carbon-free energy from day one

Microsoft’s forthcoming New Zealand datacenter region—comprising three separate datacenters—is set to usher in a new era of tech acceleration in this country, bringing hyperscale public cloud capabilities on a scale neve

Microsoft Switzerland expands its local datacenters with Availability Zones

To reinforce its commitment to providing business continuity, data protection, and security in the cloud, Microsoft Switzerland is launching Azure Availability Zones in the Switzerland North datacenter region.

Microsoft is the first global cloud provider to achieve Qatar’s National Information Assurance Certification

Microsoft has become the first global cloud provider in Qatar to receive the National Information Assurance Certification issued by the National Cyber Security Agency.

Microsoft announces intent to build a new datacenter region in Finland, accelerating sustainable digital transformation, and enabling large scale carbon-free district heating

To support customer needs for high availability and resilience, the new datacenter region will feature Azure Availability Zones—unique physical locations equipped with independent power, networking, and cooling for addit

Microsoft announces intent to establish India datacenter region in Hyderabad

This strategic investment is aligned with Microsoft’s commitment to help customers thrive in a cloud- and AI-enabled digital economy—and will become part of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft Azure expands to new region in the China market

A new Microsoft Azure region in North China will gain unrestricted access by customers, adding a fifth Azure region to the China market and doubling the capacity of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud portfolio in China.

Microsoft announces plans to establish a new datacenter region in Denmark to accelerate the country’s green, digital transformation

Powered by 100 percent renewable energy, the datacenter region will provide Danish customers of all sizes with faster access to Microsoft Cloud, world-class security, and the ability to store data at rest in the country.

Microsoft launches Azure Availability Zones in its Central India datacenter region

Microsoft India announces the launch of Availability Zones in its Central India datacenter region, providing additional resilience options for customers’ cloud apps.

MEEZA reveals the launch of its 4th M-VAULT 4 Data Center building

The new datacentre building hosts a Microsoft Cloud datacentre region offering cloud services to customers in Qatar, the region, and the world.

Microsoft announces “Digital AmBEtion” plan to accelerate growth and innovation in Belgium, including its intent to establish a datacenter region in the country

Digital AmBEtion includes three pillars: providing world-class digital infrastructure, helping citizens develop digital skills, and creating sustainable societal impact.

Microsoft expands cloud services with two new datacenters in Wyoming

Microsoft announces the launch of two new Microsoft datacenters in Cheyenne, Wyoming—one in the Cheyenne Business Parkway and another in Bison Business Park.

Microsoft opens its sustainable datacenter region in Sweden, creating new opportunities for a cloud-first Sweden

Microsoft Corp. announces the launch of its newest sustainable datacenter region in Sweden with presence in Gävle, Sandviken, and Staffanstorp.

Azure Availability Zones to enable competitiveness of SA businesses

Microsoft has made Azure Availability Zones generally available in the Johannesburg datacentre region (SA North).

Microsoft’s global partner Predica enters Qatar ahead of cloud region launch

Ahead of Microsoft unveiling its new datacentre in Doha, its partner, Predica, entered the Qatari market in anticipation of an increase in demand for a world-class IT consultancy.

Expanding cloud services: Microsoft launches its sustainable datacenter region in Arizona

We’re launching our newest sustainable datacenter region in Arizona, known as “West US 3.” 

Microsoft to launch new cloud datacenter region in Israel

Microsoft announces plans to establish the company’s first cloud region in Israel to deliver its intelligent, trusted cloud services through a local datacenter region.

MIDA welcomes Microsoft’s first datacenter region in Malaysia: A game-changer for Malaysia’s digital economic transformation

The Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) is proud to pronounce Microsoft’s Bersama Malaysia initiative as a game-changer toward the country’s digital-first agenda, in line with the nation’s MyDIGITAL aspirat

Microsoft announces plans to establish its first datacenter region in Malaysia as part of “Bersama Malaysia” initiative to support inclusive economic growth

Microsoft Corp. announces its “Bersama Malaysia” (Together with Malaysia) initiative, which marks a significant commitment to empowering Malaysia’s inclusive digital economy and advancing the nation’s digital transformat

Microsoft to establish first datacenter region in Indonesia as part of Berdayakan Ekonomi Digital Indonesia initiative

Microsoft announces its Berdayakan Ekonomi Digital Indonesia initiative, which marks a significant commitment to advancing growth and digital transformation for Indonesia, its vibrant developer and startup ecosystem, ent

Microsoft will establish its next U.S. datacenter region in Georgia’s Fulton and Douglas Counties

Datacenters are part of today’s critical infrastructure—providing reliable and scalable compute power for online transactions, conference calls, virtual classrooms, supply chain and inventory management, internet searche

Microsoft New Zealand cloud business lead appointed to regional role

Microsoft New Zealand is congratulating Azure Business Group Lead Patrick (Padi) Quesnel for his appointment to a new regional role.

Azure Availability Zones in the South Central US datacenter region add resiliency

To continue our commitment to supporting stability and resiliency in the cloud, Microsoft is announcing the general availability of Azure Availability Zones from our South Central US datacenter region.

Microsoft Switzerland launches Dynamics 365, more Power Platform modules, and additional Azure services from the Swiss datacenters

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Switzerland is completing its existing local cloud offering after having previously launched Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft announces investments to accelerate Sweden’s digital transformation and plans to open its sustainable datacenter region in 2021

Microsoft Corp. announces another major milestone in its commitment to sustainable transformation and investment in Sweden. 

Microsoft to establish its first datacenter region in Taiwan as a part of its Reimagine Taiwan initiative

Microsoft Corp. announces another major milestone in its “Reimagine Taiwan” initiative, including plans to establish its first cloud datacenter region in Taiwan and a significant investment in local talent and developmen

Microsoft announces plans to establish its first cloud region in Austria to accelerate local innovation and growth

Bringing the power of Microsoft’s global-scale and trusted cloud to the country’s broad ecosystem of startups, small or medium-sized businesses, enterprises, and government

Microsoft announces plans for first datacenter region in Greece as part of “GR for GRowth” digital transformation initiative

A significant technology commitment to support people, government, and businesses of all sizes in Greece.

Microsoft’s newest sustainable datacenter region coming to Arizona in 2021

In developing the new West US 3 region, we have water conservation and replenishment firmly in mind. 

Microsoft datacenter region granted consent from the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office

The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) determined that Microsoft and the individuals who will govern the investment on the company’s behalf satisfy OIO’s requirements under the Overseas Investment Act. 

Microsoft announces first major customer for New Zealand datacenter

A new strategic partnership with Fonterra will see the dairy co-operative migrate many mission-critical operations to Microsoft Azure to support its global growth plans. 

Malaysia’s telecommunications leader transforms its datacenter and empowers a culture of excellence

To transform its business practices, the company chose to go digital with Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft launches new cloud computing services in UK Azure regions

Microsoft has introduced a number of new cloud computing services across its Microsoft Azure regions in the UK to help keep organisations’ data secure and enable innovation through the use of bots, Internet of Things (Io

Microsoft announces $1.5 billion investment plan to accelerate digital transformation in Italy, including its first cloud datacenter region

This marks a significant commitment to support local innovation and growth, including the intent to bring Microsoft’s first datacenter region to the country.

Microsoft announces a $1 billion digital transformation plan for Poland, including access to local cloud services with first datacenter region

Microsoft Corp. announces a comprehensive $1 billion investment plan to accelerate innovation and digital transformation in the “Polish Digital Valley.”

Microsoft to open new datacenter region in Spain and expand strategic partnership with Telefonica to boost Spain’s competitiveness

Microsoft Corp. and Telefónica announce plans to further expand their global strategic partnership to accelerate digital transformation for public and private entities of all sizes.

Microsoft announces a $1.1 billion investment plan to drive digital transformation, including its first cloud datacenter region

Microsoft announces continued progress on its “Innovate for Mexico” plan to contribute to the development of the country.

Microsoft plans to establish new cloud datacenter region in Qatar

Microsoft announces plans to establish a new cloud datacenter region in Qatar to deliver its intelligent, trusted cloud services and expand Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft opens two more datacenter regions in the Middle East and Africa, strengthening its cloud footprint in the region

For the first time, Microsoft cloud services are now being delivered from datacentres in the Middle East—with the general availability of two new cloud regions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Microsoft cloud datacenter regions now available in the UAE to help fuel the Middle East’s future economic ambitions

Microsoft takes a significant step in supporting digital transformation across the Middle East as it launches two new cloud regions in the United Arab Emirates.

Building for the future: Microsoft’s new Swedish datacenters have sustainability firmly in mind

Viewed as a highly sustainable country, Sweden has made strong commitments to reduce its environmental impact. Its government is even pursuing a progressive Fossil Free Sweden initiative. 

Microsoft brings digital transformation opportunities with the arrival of its first African datacenters

Microsoft’s first datacentres in Africa are open to customers—with the general availability of Microsoft Azure from new cloud regions in Johannesburg and Cape Town. 

Microsoft opens first datacenters in Africa with general availability of Microsoft Azure

Microsoft announces the general availability of Microsoft Azure from our new cloud regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Swiss Microsoft Cloud provides entirely new opportunities in the areas of data management, regulatory compliance and governance

Cloud services—including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft Dynamics 365—delivered from Switzerland are especially interesting for companies and organizations handling sensitive data. These include the

Microsoft Asia’s biggest datacenter pair: Hong Kong and Singapore

Having a comprehensive presence in Asia enables us to provide the best services to our customers. 

Azure Availability Zones expand with new services and to new regions in Europe and United States

Azure Availability Zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region that protect customers’ apps and data from datacenter-level failures.

Link Datacenter and Microsoft Egypt introduce Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Services to Enterprises

Link Datacenter, the leading integrated technology solution provider, has joined forces with Microsoft Egypt to deliver Azure Stack services and become the first provider in Egypt to offer Azure Stack Cloud Services thro

Microsoft to deliver cloud services from new datacenters in Germany in 2019 to meet evolving customer needs

These new regions will provide both core customer data residency within Germany and full connectivity to Microsoft’s global cloud network. 

Microsoft to deliver intelligent cloud from Norway datacenters

Microsoft announces plans to further expand its significant and growing investment in cloud computing in Europe by delivering the intelligent Microsoft Cloud from two new datacenter regions in Norway.

Microsoft announces two new datacenter regions in Norway

Microsoft announces plans to further expand its cloud computing commitment in Europe by delivering the intelligent Microsoft Cloud from two new datacentre regions in Norway. 

Microsoft cloud services expand in Europe, including new Swiss datacenters

Microsoft baut seine Cloud-Infrastruktur zügig aus und adressiert die steigende Kundennachfrage in Europa.

Microsoft to deliver the intelligent cloud from new datacenters in the Middle East

Microsoft reveals plans to deliver the intelligent, trusted Microsoft Cloud from its first datacenters located in the Middle East. This will empower organizations, governments, and businesses to achieve more and recogniz

Microsoft reveals plans for new datacenter in Europe and the Middle East while expanding its cloud offerings

Microsoft announces the expansion of its cloud services in Europe and the Middle East.

Microsoft France announces the opening of four datacenters in France

Carlo Purassanta, Président de Microsoft France, a présenté ce matin la feuille de route du groupe en France pour 2018 – une année guidée par les trois paris technologiques de Microsoft

Microsoft first to offer Azure cloud regions for Australian government

Microsoft plans to deliver Microsoft Azure from two new regions within highly secure datacentres in Canberra, Australia.

Canberra Data Centres turbocharges public sector ecosystem with Microsoft Azure

Located 570 metres above sea level, ringed by national park and farmland, and with a population of just 400,000, Canberra may not seem like an obvious candidate for some of the world’s most advanced datacentres.

New government datacenter regions available in Arizona and Texas

Microsoft continues investment in South Korea by extending Office 365 to new datacenters in Seoul and Busan

Microsoft announces the general availability of Microsoft Office 365 from the new Microsoft Cloud datacenter regions in Seoul and Busan. These offer customers in South Korea the same highly secure cloud productivity and

The most trusted government cloud for mission-critical workloads

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gives a Mastermind Keynote at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando discussing Microsoft’s differentiated cloud for global good and how not all clouds are created equal.

Microsoft becomes first global provider to deliver complete cloud from UK datacenters

Microsoft Cloud opens in the UK with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365 now generally available from multiple datacentre locations.

Microsoft Azure now available from UK datacenters

Microsoft is the first global provider to deliver the complete cloud from datacenters in the UK.

Announcement of commercial cloud services from local datacenters in India

Read a collection of customer and partner quotes about cloud offerings from the India datacenter.

Microsoft launches commercial cloud services from local datacenters in India

Microsoft announces the availability of Microsoft Azure services via local datacenter regions in India.

Datacenter expansion and capacity planning

People’s ears usually perk up when they hear that Microsoft Azure uses more server compute capacity than was used on the planet in 1999.

Local datacenter news

Join us for exciting news updates and stories about local happenings in one our datacenter geographies

The Microsoft Cloud

Our integrated and open cloud platform spans six critical areas—security, infrastructure, digital and app innovation, data and AI, business applications, and modern work—all designed to help organizations achieve more.