January 15, 2024 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft and the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have partnered to find the best materials for batteries. Using Microsoft's Azure Quantum Elements, they have reduced the possibilities of materials from millions to only a few options, with one...
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January 09, 2024 Microsoft Azure
South Korean solar panel producer Qcells this week announced an eight-year strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. to extend the companies’ existing solar panel supply deal. This extension comes as Microsoft looks to procure a large amount of solar panels produced in the US for its renewable...
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December 20, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has recently signed a large deal to pay for biochar production in Bolivia to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Following this deal, Exomad Green, the world’s largest biochar producer, will create the inert carbon residue at its facility in Concepción, Bolivia. Microsoft will pay for...
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December 13, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft recently revealed its plans to use renewable natural gas (RNG) made from food waste to help power a microgrid that provides resilience at its San Jose data center. Fuel cell provider Enchanted Rock is in charge of this project and announced in 2022 that the microgrid would use biogas...
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November 23, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft this week announced that it will be expanding its footprint in Canada with multiple new data centers with an investment of US$500 million to expand its cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Quebec over the next two years. The company notes that this investment will increase its local...
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November 23, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Sam Altman, who was suddenly fired by the board has “reached an agreement in principle” to return as CEO of OpenAI as nearly all of OpenAI’s employees threatened to leave the company if the board did not reverse its decision. Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear, who was appointed as interim CEO aid...
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November 20, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has recruited Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and other OpenAI researchers who left the startup over the weekend to head a new advanced AI research team. The OpenAI board abruptly fired Altman, saying he was "not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability...
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November 15, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has recently announced it is working on two in-house designed semiconductors. One is an Arm CPU called the Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU, designed for general workloads, focusing on performance per watt and a dedicated AI accelerator. The other is the Microsoft Azure Maia AI Accelerator,...
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November 08, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Oracle recently announced a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to support the growth of AI services. Following this agreement, Microsoft will use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) AI infrastructure and Microsoft Azure AI infrastructure to infuse AI models to power Microsoft Bing conversational...
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November 02, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has revealed its plans to construct a new data center campus on a 347-acre property on Huffaker Road, east of Fouche Gap Road, outside Rome, Georgia. The Rome Floyd County Development Authority (RFCDA), as well as several local news outlets, announced the $1 billion campus outside the...
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November 01, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft revealed in an update that it has launched its newest Israeli Azure cloud region. The company noted in a now-deleted update, “We are launching our newest data center region in Israel. The new Israel Central data center region includes Azure availability zones, which offer you additional...
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October 24, 2023 Microsoft Azure
A Microsoft data center experienced a two-hour outage as its electrical distribution system failed when the company attempted to swap from utility power to its backup generators. Microsoft noted in a newly published report that a power issue impacted some customers in a single Availability Zone...
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October 24, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Tech giant Microsoft has reportedly canceled plans for a data center in Prague in the Czech Republic due to "complex bureaucracy and long wait times for decisions." An E15 source noted, "A certain small hope is still alive, but rather it is wishful thinking of the managers of the domestic branch...
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October 20, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Shizen Energy Inc. announced its latest 20-year virtual VPPA with Microsoft to supply renewable energy from a 25MWac solar farm in Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture. This agreement between both companies marks Microsoft’s first PPA in Japan. Sizen is also constructing a solar farm, which will...
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October 20, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft recently revealed plans to build a team dedicated to researching data center automation and robotics. The tech giant has also posted a job listing for a hardware automation team manager specializing in robotics. The job listing states, "As the Team Manager - Hardware Robotics, for our...
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October 19, 2023 Microsoft Azure
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) alleges that tech giant Microsoft owes the US government about $28.9 billion in taxes, penalties, and interest. However, Microsoft has denied these charges and intents to "vigorously contest" them. Microsoft revealed in an SEC filing that it received a Notice of...
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October 18, 2023 Microsoft Azure
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has finally approved Microsoft's proposed acquisition of famous video games publisher Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. This comes after an initial blockage of the deal over concerns relating to the impact of this acquisition on competition in...
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October 16, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft recently revealed plans to build a new data center campus in Aragon, in the northeastern region of Spain. The company is yet to share details about this development. However, local press have reported that Microsoft plans to develop three sites around Zaragoza; A 63-acre site in the...
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October 09, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Global technology giant Microsoft revealed plans to develop a new data center campus in Newport Wales. In a post on its website, the company wrote, “Microsoft will be applying for planning permission for a data center in Newport, Wales. We are preparing a planning application for the site in the...
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October 09, 2023 Microsoft Azure
Microsoft has replaced the criticized diesel backup generators used at a Swedish data center with a battery energy storage system (BESS). The BESS system supplied in June provides 16MWh of storage and black start capability to guarantee instant recovery of the power grid, all without greenhouse...
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