Azure Updates: AI model development; VMs; Data Manager for Energy

Microsoft is poised to close out its fiscal year in little over a week, and the Azure team  is closing out June with a string of small but important announcements that will affect the channel in the year ahead.

Senior product manager Jyothi Venkatesh announced the general availability of HBv4 and HX Series VMs for HPC. These are Microsoft’s first VMs with 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, as well as 400 Gigabit NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand. The new VMs are intended for use cases such as geoscience simulations, computational fluid dynamics, and complex renderings. According to Venkatesh, compared with HBv3-series VMs, customers will see up to 1.6 times faster rendering and 2.4 times better performance for weather simulations.

Microsoft is working with KPMG use OpenAI Service to build use cases on top of generative AI, creating pre-built AI models to assist Reddit boosting online engagement, and applying Machine Learning with Broward College to understand student retention patterns, according to the companies.

“Azure AI is more than just a cloud platform for building and deploying AI solutions. It is a comprehensive AI ecosystem that empowers developers, organizations, and customers to create transformative intelligent applications. Whether you need ready-to-integrate AI services, customizable models, or machine learning platform capabilities, Azure AI has you covered,” wrote Microsoft senior director Olivia Shone.