Across Microsoft, we are using AI to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges (opens in new tab) more quickly and effectively than ever.
Here are a few examples that demonstrate how AI and other technologies are accelerating innovation and charting a path toward much-needed breakthroughs.
Discovery
Microsoft Discovery accelerates research and development by bringing the power of AI to scientists and engineers, transforming the entire discovery process—from advanced knowledge reasoning and hypothesis formulation to experimental simulation and iterative learning.
The platform enables researchers to collaborate with a team of specialized AI agents combined with a graph-based knowledge engine to advance scientific breakthroughs with speed, scale, and accuracy.
Health
Generative AI has revolutionized machines’ ability to understand human language and images. This is particularly promising in medicine, where it can improve patient outcomes and clinicians’ experiences.
BioEmu
Proteins are the functional building blocks of life and are central to drug discovery and biotechnology. Biomolecular Emulator-1 (BioEmu-1) is a generative deep-learning model that gives scientists a glimpse into the rich world of different structures each protein can adopt. This matters because a deeper understanding of proteins could enable the design of more effective drugs, as many medications work by influencing protein structures to boost their function or prevent harm.
GigaTIME
Emerging technologies like multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) can assess the internal states of individual cells along with their spatial locations, which is critical for deciphering how tumors interact with the immune system. The resulting insights, often referred to as the “grammar” of the tumor microenvironment, can help predict whether a tumor will respond to immunotherapy. When a response is unlikely, these insights can also inform strategies to reprogram the tumor from “cold” to “hot,” increasing its susceptibility to treatment.
GigaTIME is a multimodal AI model that translates pathology slides, the kind routinely used in cancer diagnosis, into virtual mIF images. Developed in collaboration with Providence and the University of Washington, this represents, to our knowledge, the first population-scale study of the tumor immune microenvironment.
TRIALSCOPE
The rapid digitization of real-world health data is creating unprecedented opportunities to improve health care delivery and accelerate biomedical discovery. However, much of this data is found in unstructured forms, such as clinical notes in electronic medical records, making it difficult to generate reliable evidence for clinical decision-making.
TRIALSCOPE address this challenge by using biomedical language models to structure clinical text at scale, employing advanced methods to clean and fill gaps in the data, and incorporating state-of-the-art techniques to ensure fair comparisons of treatment effectiveness.
Earth
We are advancing Earth system modeling with a single AI model that can predict tropical cyclones, air pollution, and ocean waves, in addition to weather.
Aurora
Microsoft’s Aurora AI foundation model uses the latest advances in AI to more accurately predict a wide range of environmental events. Aurora can be fine-tuned to go beyond traditional weather forecasting to predicting air pollution, ocean waves, and tropical cyclones.
Aurora learns to generate forecasts by training on over one million hours of weather data. It generates forecasts in seconds, compared to traditional systems that require hours on large supercomputers to generate comparable predictions. Researchers are particularly interested in adapting Aurora to better predict rain, enhance crop logistics, and protect energy grids.
SPARROW
Project SPARROW—Solar-Powered Acoustic and Remote Recording Observation Watch—is an AI-powered computing solution developed by Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab to preserve biodiversity. Imagine the thrill of viewing nature in the most remote corners of the planet through a network of little cameras and microphones reporting in real time. These tools, paired with AI, allow for live detection of wildlife and conservation concerns, enabling faster, more informed protection efforts.
Quantum
From climate change to food security, quantum computing can help address some of the world’s most urgent needs. Microsoft is working with governments, global security organizations, and our partners to develop and deploy quantum-safe technologies.
Majorana 1
Microsoft researchers created distinctive quantum properties that led to a new type of quantum chip called the Majorana 1. The chip is powered by a new type of quantum architecture expected to enable quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems that are beyond the reach of today’s computers—within years, not decades.
The chip uses the world’s first topoconductor, a breakthrough material that can observe and control Majorana particles, a special type of quantum particle, to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, the core components of quantum computers. While there is still work ahead, many difficult scientific and engineering challenges have now been met.
QuNorth
EIFO, the export and investment fund of Denmark, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, an independent Danish enterprise foundation, are investing €80 million to establish QuNorth, a new Nordic quantum initiative to advance the region’s technological development.
As part of this initiative, Microsoft and Atom Computing will bring the world’s most powerful quantum computer to QuNorth, the first operational deployment of a machine powered by logical qubits.
Explore more
A collection of stories that may be of interest