Eighty years ago, the first United Nations General Assembly convened in London, marking the start of a new era of global cooperation. Today, the context in which the UN operates has changed significantly. The UN system is being asked to deliver results with greater speed and precision, often amid tightening resources and growing demands. In response, the UN is advancing reforms to become more agile, accountable, and efficient.

The UN80 initiative, launched by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is about making the UN system fit for the future, strengthening its resilience, responsiveness, and capacity for innovation across humanitarian response, development, and international security.

Leaning in at a pivotal time

We are at a unique moment in history, the AI era, where digital and AI technologies can fundamentally reshape how large, complex institutions deliver for people around the world. For the UN, this is an opportunity not only to strengthen core systems such as procurement, service delivery, and supply chain management, but to reimagine how it meets the needs of constituents with greater speed, scale, and impact. Microsoft can support this moment by helping build the digital and AI foundations needed to modernize operations and unlock new solutions to global challenges at a scale not previously possible.

Our commitment to UN80

In December, all 193 Member States reached agreement on a package of measures to ensure financial stability and enhance efficiency across the UN system. Following that, and in the spirit of the US Government’s recent $2 billion contribution to fund humanitarian aid, Microsoft is announcing a pledge designed to support the UN system holistically. We hope that our pledge will inspire further action and help catalyze broader private sector resources and expertise. Microsoft’s UN80 pledge is structured around four pillars.

1. A UN80 innovation fund
2. Affordable pricing tailored for the UN
3. AI training and readiness for UN staff
4. Mobilizing private sector partners

Together, these commitments are intended to support the organization’s efforts to become more agile, efficient, and transparent through concrete action and investment. We describe each pillar in more detail below.

1.A UN80 innovation fund

Microsoft is committing a multi-million-dollar investment to establish an innovation fund that will support priority UN80 initiatives, particularly where AI and digital technologies can accelerate outcomes. This fund is designed to be collective, open to other private sector partners’ contributions, and focused on practical projects that strengthen UN capabilities and delivery.

2.Affordable pricing tailored for the UN

Microsoft is making a pricing commitment designed to improve affordability for the UN system. As part of this commitment, Microsoft will provide a specialized UN80 offer through June 2027 to  improve affordability and help address financial constraints. Access to secure, modern digital tools is foundational to the UN’s ability to operate effectively across geographies and mandates.

3.AI training and readiness for all UN staff

We will make available free digital and AI literacy training and credentials to all UN staff. This includes training on the capabilities needed to adopt and scale technology responsibly across UN agencies, missions, and offices.

4.Mobilizing private sector partners

Microsoft is committing to bring together partners to align resources, expertise, and innovation in support of UN80 priorities. EY is taking a leadership position in the industry as the first partner to join this coalition, making a similar pledge to contribute their expertise and capacity in support of UN80-aligned initiatives. EY brings deep experience across the UN system as well as across multiple industries—expertise that will be invaluable in shaping new initiatives and collaborations to strengthen the capabilities needed to meet the UN80 commitments. Together, Microsoft and EY are working to anchor this early private-sector coalition in shared purpose and equip the UN with the tools and capabilities to advance reform at scale.

Building on a foundation of impact

This commitment builds on years of concrete collaboration where technology and partnerships have strengthened core UN systems. Through our work with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), we’ve helped advance digital learning platforms that have reached millions of children worldwide, ensuring equitable access to education even in the most challenging circumstances. Our engagement with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has supported global connectivity initiatives, helping bridge the digital divide and foster inclusive access to technology. In humanitarian settings, our work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is advancing AI-powered transcription, translation, and summarization to make refugee onboarding faster and more accessible in some of the world’s toughest environments.

Together with Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and GitHub, UNHCR has also modernized mapping for the Kakuma refugee camp, enabling humanitarian teams to deliver aid more efficiently, plan infrastructure with precision, and uphold safety and dignity for over 300,000 displaced individuals. We partnered with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Training Centre of the ILO through the Women in Digital Business initiative to equip women entrepreneurs with digital and AI skills—opening doors to growth, reaching new markets, and strengthening economic impact. In remote communities like Kaswanga in Rusinga Island, these tools are breaking barriers and rewriting futures as women turn local crafts and produce into nationwide businesses.

Together, these efforts show how responsible innovation can strengthen the UN’s ability to deliver at scale.

How we will support delivery

To support effective execution of these commitments, Microsoft is standing up a dedicated UN80 engagement team to serve as a point of contact for UN counterparts. This team will engage with UN leadership to help align priorities, coordinate partner contributions, and support the effective deployment of resources as the UN80 initiative takes shape.

UN80 provides an opportunity to build on this foundation and scale what works across the system.

As the UN enters its next 80 years, Microsoft stands with the organization as a committed partner, investing in the systems and capabilities needed to deliver in a changing world. Our hope is that UN80 is more than an aspiration, and that it promotes modernization, accountability, transparency, and efficiency for years to come.

UN does not endorse any company, brand, organization, product or service.

 

 

 

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Today, Microsoft is announcing a coordinated legal action in the United States and, for the first time, the United Kingdom to disrupt RedVDS, a global cybercrime subscription service fueling millions in fraud losses. These efforts are part of a broader joint operation with international law enforcement, including German authorities and Europol, which has allowed Microsoft and its partners to seize key malicious infrastructure and take the RedVDS marketplace offline, a major step toward dismantling the networks behind AI-enabled fraud, such as real estate scams. 

For as little as US $24 a month, RedVDS provides criminals with access to disposable virtual computers that make fraud cheap, scalable, and difficult to trace. Services like these have quietly become a driving force behind today’s surge in cyber‑enabled crime, powering attacks that harm individuals, businesses, and communities worldwide. Since March 2025, RedVDS‑enabled activity has driven roughly US $40 million in reported fraud losses in the United States alone. Among the victims is H2-Pharma, an Alabama‑based pharmaceutical company that lost more than $7.3 million — money supposed to be used to sustain lifesaving cancer treatments, mental health medications, and children’s allergy drugs  for patients across the country. In a separate case, the Gatehouse Dock Condominium Association in Florida was tricked out of nearly $500,000—funds contributed by residents and property owners for essential repairs. Both organizations are joining Microsoft as co‑plaintiffs in this civil action. 

But these cases represent only a fraction of the harm. Fraud and scams frequently go unreported, victims are global, and cybercriminals routinely pivot across platforms and service providers. For the individual, fraud has lasting effects that extend beyond financial loss to emotional wellbeing, health, relationships, and long-term stability. As a result, the true toll of RedVDS‑enabled activity is far higher than the roughly US $40 million Microsoft can directly observe.

What RedVDS is—and why it matters

RedVDS is an online subscription service that is part of the growing cybercrime-as-a-service ecosystem where cybercriminals buy and sell services and tools to launch attacks at scale. It provides access to cheap, effective, and disposable virtual computers running unlicensed software, including Windows, allowing criminals to operate quickly, anonymously, and across borders.

Cybercriminals use RedVDS for a wide range of activities, including sending high‑volume phishing emails, hosting scam infrastructure, and facilitating fraud schemes. RedVDS is frequently paired with generative AI tools that help identify high‑value targets faster and generate more realistic, multimedia message email threads that mimic legitimate correspondences. In hundreds of cases, Microsoft observed attackers further augment their deception by leveraging face-swapping, video manipulation, and voice cloning AI tools to impersonate individuals and deceive victims.

In just one month, more than 2,600 distinct RedVDS virtual machines sent an average of one million phishing messages per day to Microsoft customers alone. While most were blocked or flagged as part of the 600 million cyberattacks Microsoft blocks per day, the sheer volume meant a small percentage may have succeeded in reaching the targets’ inboxes. Since September 2025, RedVDS‑enabled attacks have led to the compromise or fraudulent access of more than 191,000 organizations worldwide. These figures represent only a subset of the impacted accounts across all technology providers, illustrating how quickly this infrastructure increases the scale of cyberattacks.

How RedVDS enables fraud

One of the most common ways RedVDS‑enabled attacks result in financial loss is through payment diversion fraud, also known as business email compromise, or “BEC.” In these schemes, attackers gain unauthorized access to email accounts, quietly monitor ongoing conversations, and wait for the right moment, such as an upcoming payment or wire transfer. At that point, they impersonate a trusted party and redirect funds, often moving the money within seconds. Both H2-Pharma and the Gatehouse Dock Condominium Association were targeted through sophisticated BEC schemes that exploited trust and timing.

 

RedVDS has also been heavily used to facilitate real estate payment diversion scams, one of the fastest‑growing forms of cyber‑enabled fraud. In these cases, attackers compromise the accounts of realtors, escrow agents, or title companies and send strategically timed emails with fraudulent payment instructions designed to divert closing funds, escrow payments, and other sizeable transactions. For families and first altogether. Microsoft has observed RedVDS‑enabled activity affecting more than 9,000 customers in the real estate sector alone, with particularly severe impact in countries such as Canada and Australia.

And the threat goes far beyond real estate. RedVDS‑enabled scams have hit construction, manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, education, legal services, and many other sectors—disrupting everything from production lines to patient .

A Global Response to a Global Threat

Cybercrime today is powered by shared infrastructure, which means disrupting individual attackers is not enough. Through this coordinated action, Microsoft has disrupted RedVDS’s operations, including seizing two domains that host the RedVDS marketplace and customer portal, while also laying the groundwork to identify the individuals behind them.

Microsoft’s legal actions are reinforced by close collaboration with law enforcement partners around the world, further disrupting the malicious operation. Germany’s Public Prosecutor’s Office Frankfurt am Main – Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) and the German State Criminal Police Office Brandenburg have seized a critical server used to power RedVDS, effectively taking its central marketplace offline. At the same time and as part of this ongoing disruption, Microsoft is also working closely with international law enforcement, including Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), to disrupt the broader network of servers and payment networks that supported RedVDS customers as part of the ongoing disruption.What people and organizations can do

We are deeply grateful to H2– -Pharma and the Gatehouse Dock Condominium Association for their willingness to come forward and share their experiences. Their cooperation, combined with Microsoft’s threat intelligence, made this action possible and will help protect future victims. Falling victim to a scam should never carry stigma. These attacks are executed by organized, professional criminal groups that intercept and manipulate legitimate communications between trusted parties.

Simple steps can significantly reduce risk, including slowing down and questioning urgency, calling points of contact back using numbers that are already known to you, verifying payment requests using additional contact information, enabling multifactor authentication, watching carefully for subtle changes in email addresses, keeping software up to date, and reporting suspicious activity to law enforcement. Every report helps dismantle networks like RedVDS and brings us closer to stopping cybercrime at scale.

Continuing a collective effort to disrupt cybercrime

This action against RedVDS builds on Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to disrupt fraud and scam infrastructure through legal and technical action, collaboration with law enforcement, and participation in global initiatives such as the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA). It marks the 35th civil action targeting cybercrime infrastructure by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, underscoring a sustained strategy to go beyond individual takedowns and dismantle the services that criminals rely on to operate and scale.

As services like RedVDS continue to emerge, Microsoft will keep working with partners across sectors and borders to identify and disrupt the infrastructure behind cyber-enabled fraud, making it harder for criminals to profit and easier for people and organizations to stay safe online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Microsoft’s 5-point plan to partner with local communities across the United States

This year marks America’s 250^th year of independence. One of the trends that has repeatedly shaped the nation’s history is again in the news. As we’re experiencing at Microsoft, AI is the latest in a long line of new technologies to require large-scale infrastructure development.

Microsoft today is launching a new initiative to build what we call Community-First AI Infrastructure—a commitment to do this work differently than some others and to do it responsibly. This commits us to the concrete steps needed to be a good neighbor in the communities where we build, own, and operate our datacenters. It reflects our sense of civic responsibility as well as a broad and long-term view of what it will take to run a successful AI infrastructure business. In short, we will set a high bar.

As we launch this initiative, we think about it in the context of both the headlines of the day and the lessons from the past. Beginning in the 1770s, the country has advanced through successive eras built on huge infrastructure development based on canals, railroads, power plants, and the electrical grid, followed by the telephone system, highways, and airports. AI infrastructure has become the next chapter in this story.

Like major buildouts of the past, AI infrastructure is expensive and complex. Investments are advancing at a rapid pace. Today, these require large-scale spending by the private sector in land, construction, electricity, liquid cooling, high-bandwidth connectivity, and operations. This revives a longstanding question: how can our nation build transformative infrastructure in a way that strengthens, rather than strains, the local communities where it takes root?

Large AI investments are accelerating just as datacenter concerns are growing in local communities. The pattern is familiar. Whether it was canals, railroads, the electrical grid, or the interstate highway system, each era produced its own conflicts over who bore the burdens of progress. One enduring lesson is that successful infrastructure buildouts will only progress when communities feel that the gains outweigh the costs. Long-term success requires a commitment to address public needs, including by the private companies making these investments.

This must start by understanding local concerns. Residential electricity rates have recently risen in dozens of states, driven in part by several years of inflation, supply chain constraints, and long-overdue grid upgrades. Communities value new jobs and property tax revenue, but not if they come with higher power bills or tighter water supplies. Without addressing these issues directly, even supportive communities will question the role of datacenters in their backyard.

As a company, we believe in the many positive advances AI will bring to America’s future. From stronger economic growth to better medical advances and more affordable products, we believe AI will make a difference in everyday lives. But we also recognize that AI, like other fundamental technological shifts, will create new challenges as well. And we believe that tech companies like Microsoft have both a unique opportunity to help contribute to these advances and a heightened responsibility to address these challenges head-on.

This Community-First AI Infrastructure Initiative provides a framework for doing exactly that. It is anchored in five commitments, each a clear promise to the communities where we build, own, and operate Microsoft datacenters. These are:

1. We’ll pay our way to ensure our datacenters don’t increase your electricity prices.
2. We’ll minimize our water use and replenish more of your water than we use.
3. We’ll create jobs for your residents.
4. We’ll add to the tax base for your local hospitals, schools, parks, and libraries.
5. We’ll strengthen your community by investing in local AI training and nonprofits.

We describe our plans in detail below. We recognize that these will evolve and improve, based most importantly on what we learn from ongoing engagement with local communities across the country. We’ll also follow this plan for Community-First AI Infrastructure with similar plans for other countries, shaped to reflect their local needs and traditions.

But we are choosing the beginning of 2026 in Washington, DC to launch this effort in the United States. Our goal is to move quickly, partner with local communities, and bring these commitments to life in the first half of this year.

1.Electricity: We’ll pay our way to ensure our datacenters don’t increase your electricity prices.

There’s no denying that AI consumes large amounts of electricity. While advances in technology may someday change this, today, this is the reality.

The United States will retain its AI leadership role only if AI infrastructure can tap into a rapidly growing supply of electricity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that US datacenter electricity demand will more than triple by 2035, growing from 200 terawatt-hours to 640 terawatt-hours per year. This growth is taking place alongside rapid electrification of manufacturing and other sectors of the economy.

Our nation is addressing this reality at a demanding time. Even in the absence of datacenter construction, the United States is facing major electricity challenges. Much of the country’s electricity transmission infrastructure is more than 40 years old, and it’s under strain. Supply chain constraints on transformers and high-voltage equipment are delaying upgrades that would enable existing lines to deliver more electricity. New transmission can take more than 7 to 10 years due to permitting and siting delays. This creates a mismatch with growing electricity demand.

Some have suggested that AI will be so beneficial that the public should help pay for the added electricity the country needs for it. We believe in the benefits AI will create, but we disagree with this approach. Especially when tech companies are so profitable, we believe that it’s both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public to shoulder added electricity costs for AI. Instead, we believe the long-term success of AI infrastructure requires that tech companies pay their own way for the electricity costs they create.

This will require that we take four steps, and we’re committed to each:

First, we’ll ask utilities and public commissions to set our rates high enough to cover the electricity costs for our datacenters. This includes the costs of adding and using the electricity infrastructure needed for the datacenters we build, own, and operate. We will work closely with utility companies that set electricity prices and state commissions that approve these prices. Our goal is straightforward: to ensure that the electricity cost of serving our datacenters is not passed on to residential customers.

In some areas, communities are already starting to benefit from this approach. In Wyoming, for example, Microsoft and Black Hills Energy have developed an innovative utility partnership that ensures our datacenter growth strengthens—rather than burdens—the local community. And as part of our datacenter investment in Wisconsin, we are supporting a new rate structure that would charge “Very Large Customers,” including datacenters, the cost of the electricity required to serve them. This protects residents by preventing those costs from being passed on. But we recognize the need to ensure that datacenter communities benefit everywhere. We believe this approach can and should be a model for other states.

Second, we’ll collaborate early, closely, and transparently with local utilities to add electricity and the supporting infrastructure to the grid when needed for our datacenters. Addressing electricity costs is critical, but it is an incomplete solution for local communities unless we expand electricity supply. This expansion typically requires a complex effort that includes the expansion of electrical generation capacity and improvements in transmission and substation systems.

We’re committed to collaborating with local utilities. We will sit down and plan together, providing early transparency around our projected power requirements and contracting in advance for the electricity we will use. When our datacenter expansion requires improvements in transmission and substation capabilities, we will continue our existing practices by paying for these improvements.

This work will build on a spirit of partnership with utilities we’ve worked to foster across the country. For example, in the wholesale energy market that covers much of the Midwest called the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), we have contracted to add 7.9 GW of new electricity generation to the grid, which is more than double our current consumption.

Third, we’ll pursue innovation to make our datacenters more efficient. We are also using AI to reduce energy use and improve the performance of our software and hardware in the design and management of our datacenters. And we are collaborating closely with utilities to leverage tools like AI to improve planning, get more electricity from existing lines and equipment, improve system resilience and durability, and speed the development of new infrastructure, including nuclear energy technologies.

By embedding these innovations into datacenters and by collaborating directly with local utilities, communities gain access to systems that are more efficient, more reliable, and better prepared to support growth without increasing costs for households.

Fourth, we’ll advocate for the state and national public policies needed to support our neighboring communities with affordable, reliable, and sustainable power. Public policy plays an essential role in supporting communities with affordable, reliable, and sustainable access to electricity. In 2022, Microsoft established priorities for electricity policy advocacy: expanding clean electricity generation, modernizing the grid, and engaging local communities. Over the past three years, we have advocated across all three areas and engaged with government leaders at the federal, state, and local levels to do so. To date, however, progress has been uneven. This needs to change.

We will advocate for policies across these areas with an urgent focus on accelerating project permitting and interconnection of electricity projects, expediting the planning and expansion of the electricity grid, and designing new electricity rates for large electricity users.

2. Water: We’ll minimize our water use and replenish more of your water than we use.

Across the country, communities are asking pointed questions about how datacenters use water. These are arising in places already facing water stress, like Phoenix and Atlanta, as well as regions with more abundant supply, like Wisconsin. These concerns are often amplified by aging municipal water systems and infrastructure gaps. Local communities want and deserve reassurance that new AI infrastructure won’t strain their water resources.

Our commitment ensures that our presence will strengthen local water systems rather than burden them. We’ll do this by reducing the amount of water we use and by investing in local water systems and water replenishment projects.

First, we’re committed to reducing the amount of water our datacenters use. The chips that power datacenters produce heat. To manage that heat, datacenters historically relied upon evaporative cooling systems that drew on large volumes of water for cooling in hot weather. As AI workloads have increased, the demand for cooling has increased. The GPU chips that power AI workloads run at very high temperatures; without proper cooling, these chips would burn out within minutes.

The good news is that the tech sector has invested in new innovations to address these cooling needs. Now is the time when we need to step up, use these new technologies, and take added steps to address water use concerns.

Across our entire owned fleet of datacenters, we are committed as a company to a 40 percent improvement in datacenter water-use intensity by 2030. We are optimizing water usage for cooling, improving our ability to balance between water-based cooling and air cooling based on environmental conditions. We have also launched a new AI datacenter design that uses a closed-loop system. By constantly recirculating a cooling liquid, we can dramatically cut our water usage. In this next-generation design, already deployed in locations such as Wisconsin and Georgia, potable water is no longer needed for cooling, reducing pressure on local freshwater systems.

For communities where water infrastructure constraints pose challenges, we will collaborate with local utilities to understand whether current systems can support the additional demand associated with datacenter growth. If sufficient capacity does not exist, we work with our engineering teams to identify solutions that avoid burdening the community.

This approach will build on what we’ve learned from the recent work at our datacenters in Quincy, Washington, an arid region where the local groundwater supply was already under pressure. To avoid drawing from the community’s potable water, we partnered with the city to construct the Quincy Water Reuse Utility, which treats and recirculates datacenter cooling water rather than relying on local groundwater. This approach protects limited drinking-water supplies while ensuring that high-quality, recycled water can be used for datacenter cooling needs. Where future system improvements are required, Microsoft funds those upgrades in full, ensuring that the community doesn’t have to shoulder the cost of supporting our operations.

We also partner with utilities from day one to map out water, wastewater, and pressure needs, and we fully fund the infrastructure required for growth, ensuring local water systems are resilient. Beyond our own footprint, we invest directly in community water infrastructure, modernizing water systems, expanding access, increasing water reliability, and helping utilities maintain stable rates and pressure. For example, near our datacenter in Leesburg, Virginia, Microsoft is funding more than $25 million of water and sewer improvements to ensure the cost of serving our facilities does not fall on local ratepayers.

Second, we will ensure that we replenish more water than we withdraw. This means restoring measurable amounts of water to the same water districts where our datacenter’s water is used, so the total water returned exceeds total water used. This standard provides greater transparency and precision in tracking and reporting, aligned with emerging industry standards.

We will pursue projects that make the most important water contribution to each local community. For example, in the greater Phoenix area and nearby Nevada communities, our leak detection partnerships with local utilities identify and repair hidden breaks in aging water systems, preventing water losses and keeping municipal water in circulation for community use. These projects both add to the total usable water supply and improve the reliability of service for residents.

Across the Midwest, we are restoring historic oxbow wetlands. These are crescent-shaped water bodies that naturally recharge groundwater, reduce flood risk, and enhance habitats for native species. These wetlands act as nature’s reservoirs, capturing and slowly returning water to local aquifers throughout both wet seasons and droughts, creating year-round value for farms, ecosystems, and nearby communities.

Overall, we approach replenishment the same way a household might think about a bank account: our operations make water withdrawals, and our replenishment projects make deposits. Some deposits, like our leak detection projects, go straight into the checking account—depositing water into the municipal supply for immediate community use. Others, like wetland restoration, go into a savings account—investing in the watershed’s long-term capacity to store and supply the region. These projects are evaluated using recognized methods that convert on-the-ground improvements into measurable gallons (or cubic meters) of water restored to local ecosystems, ensuring that commitments reflect tangible local benefits, not abstract promises.

Third, we will support this work with greater local transparency. People deserve to know how much water our datacenters use, and we are committed to making that information accessible, clear, and easy to understand. Aligned with this goal, we will begin publishing water-use data for each datacenter region in the country, as well as our progress on replenishment. This approach will ensure that communities can understand both our operational footprint and the progress we are making against our water-positive goals.

Fourth, we will advocate for public policies to help minimize water use and strengthen resilience. This means championing policies that enable sustainable growth while safeguarding community resources. We will support state and federal efforts to make reclaimed and industrial recycled water the default supply for datacenters wherever feasible. We will advocate for harmonized transparency standards that allow communities to clearly understand water use and stewardship practices. And we will work to reduce permitting delays by promoting predictable pathways for water-efficient datacenter projects.

These actions reflect our belief that technology and environmental responsibility must advance together, ensuring that AI-driven progress aligns with long-term water resilience for people, places, and ecosystems. Our policy activities are rooted in protecting local communities. By prioritizing recycled water and efficiency, we will help reduce pressure on aging municipal systems and ensure reliable water access for people and businesses.

3.We’ll create jobs for your residents.

New datacenters create jobs—typically thousands during construction and hundreds during operations. For example, in Washington state more than 1,300 skilled trades workers are building Microsoft datacenters and by the end of next year more than 650 full-time employees and contractors will work across all our operational facilities there.

One of our goals is to help ensure that workers from the local community benefit from these opportunities. To achieve this, we will invest in new partnerships to help give local residents the skills and opportunities to fill these jobs in both the construction and operational phases.

The AI infrastructure construction boom is driving large-scale physical development, creating a huge demand for skilled tradespeople nationwide. As datacenters and the energy projects that support them grow quickly, firms are vying for a limited workforce. At one level, this is good news for people who already have the qualifications these jobs require. But at another level, there is a risk the jobs will not go to local residents who want to pursue these jobs unless they can acquire the skills required.

We will take a multifaceted approach.

First, we will invest in partnerships to help train local workers to support the construction and maintenance of datacenters. This includes a new and first-of-its-kind partnership between Microsoft and North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) to strengthen apprenticeship and training programs in the skilled trades where datacenters are being built. We are launching today a new agreement that establishes a cooperative framework to focus on building a pipeline of skilled workers in regions where we are building datacenters. This will also help enable NABTU to identify qualified contractor partners to bid on our infrastructure projects.

Second, we will expand our Datacenter Academy program to train individuals to fill ongoing datacenter operations roles. This program works in partnership with local community colleges and vocational schools to train students for critical roles in datacenter operations and related careers, once construction is complete.

A good example of this work is our Datacenter Academy partnerships in Boydton, Virginia, where we have a large datacenter campus. The Academy works with Southside Virginia Community College and the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, which have helped hundreds of students and adult learners earn industry-recognized certifications in information technology and critical facilities operations.

In 2024, this work expanded with the opening of a new Critical Environment Training Lab (SoVA) in South Hill. This provides hands-on training with electrical, mechanical, and cooling systems using decommissioned datacenter equipment donated by Microsoft. Graduates of these programs have gone on to pursue careers supporting datacenter operations in Southern Virginia, including roles with Microsoft and the broader ecosystem of companies that help operate and maintain digital infrastructure. We will pursue similar partnerships in other states, and we are committed to making this an ongoing part of our work in the communities where we build new datacenters.

Third, we will use our voice to encourage policymakers to support these new job opportunities. While this work is of heightened importance in communities with datacenters, the broader need for this type of skilled labor is national in scope. According to LinkedIn data, job postings for data center occupations or requiring at least one core data center skill, such as data center operations, grew by 23 percent globally and 13.5 percent in the US year-over-year in 2025. This is likely to represent an ongoing trend. Over the next decade, trillions in private investment will offer steady employment opportunities for American workers—including electricians, pipefitters, HVAC techs, welders, and construction crews—alongside manufacturing technicians for related components, like chips, power generation, and cooling systems.

However, this rapid demand for skilled labor is set to outpace the available pipeline of workers. Today, the Associated Builders and Contractors estimates that the construction industry is short roughly 439,000 workers, mostly among skilled workers who do things like lay pipe and wire electrical panels.[1] Manufacturers report shortages as well, with the CEO of Ford Motor Company recently highlighting 5,000 open mechanic jobs that pay more than $100,000 per year. And for datacenter operations, employers face shortages in hands-on infrastructure skills such as cabling, racking, and network hardware.

This problem is exacerbated by the demographics of an aging workforce and a decades-old policy trend of deprioritizing vocational education for young Americans. A generation of skilled workers, vocationally trained in high schools and apprenticeships in the 20^th century, are retiring from the trades. In the first quarter-century of the 21^st century, high schools pivoted towards preparing young people for higher education and advanced degrees, often at the expense of traditional shop classes and training in skilled craftsmanship.

The increased demand for skilled trades, paired with an aging workforce, requires an enhanced public-private workforce partnership. Secondary schools in the US can be incentivized to do more to educate young people about the trades through vocational schools and pre-apprenticeship programs. Registered apprenticeship programs offered nationally provide a fulfilling career path with long-term wages and benefits.

In partnership with labor, the federal government can champion a national apprenticeship and workforce development initiative that helps young and aspiring American workers near AI infrastructure projects, especially in rural and post-industrial regions. President Trump’s AI Action Plan rightly identifies this opportunity, and we will work closely with the Department of Labor to help scale this effort. The federal government can also help by streamlining the process by which businesses can establish and maintain a registered apprenticeship program. They can also maximize the use of existing federal dollars that directly support registered apprenticeship programs. This could entail modernizing the regulations for the National Apprenticeship Act or updating the statutory language itself.

4.We will add to the tax base for your local hospitals, schools, parks, and libraries.

One of the most tangible benefits from datacenter development is invisible to an individual driving nearby. It’s the property taxes paid by datacenters to the local municipality, which are substantial. But this too requires that the private sector take a responsible approach, as described below.

We won’t ask local municipalities to reduce their local property tax rates when we buy land or propose a datacenter presence. Instead, we’ll pay our full and fair share of local property taxes, adding revenue to local towns and cities. This is obviously critical to supporting the growth a local community often experiences when datacenters are built or expanded. And most importantly, at a time when many communities are facing revenue shortages that threaten vital public assets like hospitals, schools, parks, and libraries, we know from experience that this can make a big difference.

The benefits of this approach are nowhere more apparent than in Quincy, Washington, a small agricultural community about 150 miles east of Seattle where Microsoft built its first datacenter in 2008. Since then, we have built more than twenty datacenters in the area, providing ongoing employment to thousands of construction workers for almost two decades. Hundreds of technicians enjoy permanent jobs in those datacenters, earning salaries well above the median income for Quincy. And we estimate that for every direct construction job created, another one is created in related sectors, including security services, maintenance and repair, retail, restaurants, and more. Altogether, our datacenters drive more than $200 million in regional economic activity each year.

As a result, the share of Quincy residents living below the poverty line has been cut in half, dropping from 29.4 percent in 2013 to 13.1 percent in 2023. And county property tax revenues have more than tripled over the past two decades, from roughly $60 million to more than $180 million. This has enabled the city to invest in public services and amenities. Last year, as rural hospitals around the country cut back on critical care offerings and shuttered their doors, Quincy opened a new 54,000-square-foot medical center. The city has also made substantial renovations to its high school, adding state-of-the-art athletic facilities, an auditorium, and a career and technical training department.

We want to make sure that the other communities where our datacenters are located benefit from our presence in the same way. In all the regions where we build, own, and operate datacenters, we’re devoted to taking a civically responsible approach. This means recognizing the importance of civic services, including public safety, local healthcare, schools, libraries, and parks. As we become an important local employer, local communities can count on us to be a constructive contributor to local business and civic efforts.

5. We’ll strengthen your community by investing in local AI training and nonprofits.

We believe the datacenter communities that power AI should be among the first to benefit from it. As these communities help drive innovation and economic growth for the nation, it’s essential that they share in the economic, educational, and community benefits AI is creating. Especially as jobs evolve and require more AI skills, this requires local investments in AI education and training. To support this goal, we will provide free, age-appropriate, best-in-class AI training and education in these communities in partnership with trusted, local community-based organizations.

For years, we have been helping people gain essential digital skills in communities in and around our datacenters, such as Quincy in Eastern Washington, Boydton in Southern Virginia, and Mt. Pleasant in Southeast Wisconsin. One thing we’ve learned is that these communities have vibrant anchor institutions—schools, libraries, and local chambers of commerce—that form the backbone of local learning, workforce development, and economic growth. That’s why our approach as we go forward will be to invest in communities with our datacenters to partner with and provide support to these anchor institutions so that every community member can leverage the power of AI in how they live, work, and learn.

First, we will partner with local K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities to provide age-appropriate, responsible AI literacy training and learning experiences for students and teachers in our datacenter communities. This will build on some of our most recent experiences. For example, in Quincy, Washington, we partnered with Quincy High School and the local FFA chapter to teach students the critical AI and data skills needed for careers in precision agriculture. And in our datacenter region in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, we recently launched an AI bootcamp for students and faculty with Gateway Technical College to cultivate a new generation of developers and creators of AI tools and technology across Wisconsin technical colleges.

Our commitment is to build on this work to help students and teachers responsibly and effectively engage with AI, create with AI, manage AI, and design with AI by bringing free, locally relevant, responsible AI training that is aligned with AI literacy standards to students in every K-12 school, community college, and university in our datacenter markets.

Second, we will support adults in our datacenter communities with AI tools and skills by creating neighborhood AI learning hubs in partnership with local libraries in our key datacenter markets. This approach will build upon our previous digital skilling partnerships with local libraries. For example, during COVID, we partnered with libraries in rural communities across the country, and more recently, we helped train libraries in our Quincy and Mt. Pleasant datacenter markets on AI so that they could help their patrons learn AI skills. Building on this work, we will invest in AI literacy skills development for librarians and provide access to free AI literacy training and certifications to local library patrons, including by equipping public terminals at local libraries in our datacenter regions with AI tools and services.

Third, we will support AI skills training for small businesses. We recognize that AI training will be critical for small businesses as they navigate the transition to the AI economy. These businesses are the backbone of local economies, and their success directly impacts job creation, workforce stability, and community vitality. Through a new workforce transformation initiative, we will deliver AI training, tools, and insights to local chambers of commerce that support these small businesses. We will also provide flexible grants for AI training and upskilling to local chambers of commerce and a variety of workforce organizations to help local businesses upskill employees, adopt AI responsibly, and prepare their workforce for ongoing transformation—ensuring that economic opportunity stays rooted in the communities where we build and operate datacenters.

Finally, we will invest in your local nonprofit community. A defining aspect of Microsoft’s own history and culture has long been a commitment to support the many nonprofit organizations that are vital to every community the company calls home. As we expand our datacenters in new communities, we’re committed to bringing this role to these new regions.

This starts with support for our employees in the local community. We provide two key benefits to all our full-time employees. First, we will match every hour they spend volunteering for a nonprofit with a donation to that group of $25. Second, we’ll match each dollar they donate to a nonprofit with an equal donation by Microsoft. These give all our employees, including in our datacenters, a total potential match of $15,000 each year.

This approach to community engagement is an important part of Microsoft’s culture, and it has become the largest nonprofit charitable matching program in the history of business. In 2024 in the United States, it raised $229.1 million in donations for 29,000 nonprofits, plus 964,000 volunteer hours contributed by our employees. It’s a part of Microsoft we’re excited to bring to the communities that have our datacenters.

We recognize that our support for the local community also needs to go beyond this type of program. Our broader contribution must start with listening. You know best what your town needs, what nonprofits are making a difference, and which organizations are best positioned to do more. We will provide locally based Microsoft liaisons in major US datacenter communities to work side by side with local leaders and nonprofits. Our local staff will provide a community connection to our various Microsoft teams and resources. Working together, we will shape our direction and connection to help further our support for local nonprofits.

Conclusion

Many lessons emerge from the nation’s 250-year history relating to technology and infrastructure. The first is that large-scale infrastructure expansion is vital to economic growth and everyday improvements in people’s lives. Our lives today rely on electrical appliances, automobiles, phones, airplanes, and much more that would be impossible without modern infrastructure.

But a second lesson illustrates an important tension. Major infrastructure expansion is always difficult. It’s expensive. It inevitably raises questions, concerns, and even controversies. This has been true for more than 200 years, and we should assume it will be true well into the future. This always requires that important decisions be made by government leaders from village presidents and town councils to the American President and Congress.

Third, the most important decisions are often made at the local level. This reflects the outsized impact—both positive and negative—of infrastructure expansion at the local level. It also reflects the American political tradition and our zoning and permitting laws, which rightly put decision-making authority closest to those elected to serve local communities.

There’s a final lesson that speaks most directly to us. Private companies can help by stepping up and acting in a responsible way. We cannot surmount inevitable community challenges by ourselves. But we can make everything easier by embracing a long-term vision. By recognizing our responsibility. By playing a constructive role. And by supporting the entire community.

As we look to the future, we are committing to taking this final lesson to heart. And making it a fundamental part of our efforts every day.

[1] News Releases | ABC: Construction Industry Must Attract 439,000 W

 

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Read the full Global AI Adoption Report.

Global adoption of artificial intelligence continued to rise in the second half of 2025, increasing by 1.2 percentage points compared to the first half of the year, with roughly one in six people worldwide now using generative AI tools, remarkable progress for a technology that only recently entered mainstream use. 

To track this trend, we measure AI diffusion as the share of people worldwide who have used a generative AI product during the reported period. This measure is derived from aggregated and anonymized Microsoft telemetry and then adjusted to reflect differences in OS and device-market share, internet penetration, and country population. Additional details on the methodology are available in our AI Diffusion technical paper.^[1]

No single metric is perfect, and this one is no exception. Through the Microsoft AI Economy Institute, we continue to refine how we measure AI diffusion globally, including how adoption varies across countries in ways that best advance priorities such as scientific discovery and productivity gains. For this report, we rely on the strongest cross-country measure available today, and we expect to complement it over time with additional indicators as they emerge and mature. 

Despite progress in AI adoption, the data shows a widening divide: adoption in the Global North grew nearly twice as fast as in the Global South. As a result, 24.7 percent of the working age population in the Global North is now using these tools, compared to only 14.1 percent in the Global South.  

Countries that have invested early in digital infrastructure, AI skilling, and government adoption, such as the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Norway, Ireland, France, and Spain, continue to lead. The UAE extended its lead as the #1 ranked country, with 64.0 percent of the working age population using AI at the end of 2025, compared to 59.4 percent earlier in the year. The UAE has opened a lead of more than three percentage points over Singapore, which continues in second place with 60.9 percent adoption.

 

The second half of the year in the United States shows that leadership in innovation and infrastructure, while critical, does not by themselves lead to broad AI adoption. The U.S. leads in both AI infrastructure and frontier model development, but it fell from 23rd to 24th place in AI usage among the working age population, with a 28.3 percent usage rate. It lags far behind smaller, more highly digitized and AI-focused economies. 

South Korea stands out as the clearest end-of-year success story. It surged seven spots in the global rankings, climbing from 25th to 18th, driven by government policies, improved frontier model capabilities in the Korean language, and consumer-facing features that resonated with the population. Generative AI is now used in schools, workplaces, and public services, and South Korea has become one of ChatGPT’s fastest-growing markets, leading OpenAI to open an office in Seoul.[2] 

 

A parallel development reshaping the global landscape in 2025 was the rapid rise of DeepSeek, an open-source AI platform that has gained significant traction in markets long underserved by traditional providers. By releasing its model under an open-source MIT license and offering a completely free chatbot, DeepSeek removed both financial and technical barriers that limit access to advanced AI. Its strongest adoption, not surprisingly has emerged across China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and Belarus. But perhaps even more notable is DeepSeek’s surging popularity across Africa, where it is aided by strategic promotion and partnerships with firms such as Huawei.^[3]

This rapid evolution underscores an increasingly important dimension of AI competition between the United States and China, involving a race to promote adoption of their respective national models. DeepSeek’s success reflects growing Chinese momentum across Africa, a trend that may continue to accelerate in 2026. DeepSeek’s ascent also underscores a broader truth: the global diffusion of AI is influenced by accessibility factors, and the next wave of users may come from communities that have historically had limited access to technological progress. The challenge ahead is ensuring that innovation spreads in ways that help narrow divides rather than deepen them.

[1]A. Misra, J. Wang, S. McCullers, K. White, and J. L. Ferres, “Measuring AI Diffusion: A Population-Normalized Metric for Tracking Global AI Usage,” Nov. 04, 2025, arXiv: arXiv:2511.02781. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2511.02781..

[2] OpenAI Korea set to launch next month – The Korea Times.” https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20250828/openai-korea-set-to-launch-next-month

[3] S. Rai, L. Prinsloo, and H. Nyambura, “China’s DeepSeek Is Beating Out OpenAI and Google in Africa (1).” Bloomberg News..

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Since opening our first Canadian office in Toronto in 1985, Microsoft has played an important role in every chapter of Canada’s digital story, long before cloud and AI were household words. That history matters. Over four decades, our company and our thousands of employees have grown alongside Canada. We’ve developed a deep appreciation for this nation’s culture, values, needs, and important role in the world.

Today we are announcing the most important commitment in Microsoft Canada’s history. We’re adding to our investments—with a total of $19 billion CAD between 2023 and 2027, including more than $7.5 billion CAD in the next two years. We’re building new digital and AI infrastructure needed for the nation’s growth and prosperity, with new capacity beginning to come online in the second half of 2026. Equally important, we’re launching a new five-point plan to promote and protect Canada’s digital sovereignty. And we’re combining this with ongoing and new work to invest in Canada’s people, ensuring they have access to the skills needed to succeed in an AI era.

This builds upon Microsoft’s longstanding and deep relationship with the Canadian people. With more than 5,300 employees across 11 cities nationwide, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Quebec City, we have employees in every region to bring talent closer to the communities we serve.

Beyond our own team, based on third party estimates, we’re fueling the broader tech ecosystem with more than 17,000 companies that are Microsoft partners in Canada generating between $33B CAD and $41B CAD in annual revenue. Based on this partnership model, Microsoft helps support 426,000 jobs across Canada, including close to 300,000 people who build solutions on Microsoft platforms or provide goods and services for these efforts. As we expand our AI and cloud footprint, these partnerships are helping Canadian organizations to modernize and compete globally.

Our commitment also extends beyond business. In 2024 alone, we donated $219M CAD in grants, employee giving, and technology services to Canadian non-profits and charities.

At its core, our commitment to Canada centres on three things: technology, trust, and talent.

Technology: Building the Backbone of Canada’s Digital Future

Canada’s AI transformation is accelerating. According to Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Leaderboard, Canada ranks 14th globally in AI adoption, with usage now topping a third of the population. Developer contributions are growing too with Canada ranking 14th worldwide in GitHub AI contributors.

This momentum is clear. Canada is a leader not just in AI research, but in putting AI to good use. But sustaining this momentum requires more than enthusiasm. It demands advanced AI infrastructure, sovereign safeguards, world-class cybersecurity, and a skilled workforce to keep pace with innovation. That’s why Microsoft is investing to create a secure, sustainable, and scalable backbone for AI adoption, empowering Canada to lead confidently in the AI era.

Our investment expands our Azure Canada Central and Canada East datacentre regions, delivering sustainable, secure, and scalable cloud and AI capabilities. These datacentres will power everything from modernized public services to advanced AI innovation—responsibly and within Canadian borders.

Every facility and datacentre we build in Canada reflects Microsoft’s global commitment to sustainability. We’re designing our facilities to be energy-efficient, powered increasingly by renewable energy, and optimized for water conservation through advanced cooling technologies. These steps align with our pledge to be carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030, ensuring that as we expand our AI and cloud footprint, we do so responsibly—minimizing environmental impact while supporting Canada’s clean energy goals.

Since early 2023, these investments have already launched major infrastructure projects, created thousands of jobs, and partnered with Canadian innovators to drive sustainability and economic growth. These datacentres also translate into thousands of construction and permanent engineering and technology jobs, partnerships with Canadian digital innovators, and a surge in local economic opportunity.

Our infrastructure expansion has helped transform and develop new industries—from retail and finance to cleantech and quantum computing. Firms like Canadian Tire, Manulife, BMO, and Gay Lea Foods are embracing AI to transform their businesses, and their stories are a testament to Canada’s leadership in digital adoption.

To help achieve our 2030 sustainability goals, Microsoft is also investing in Canadian cleantech innovation. Canada is recognized as a global leader in cleantech and carbon removal technologies, and we are proud to collaborate with outstanding Canadian companies like Eavor, Cyclic Materials, Arca, Deep Sky, and Carbon Engineering (via 1PointFive).

Trust: A Five-Point Plan to Protect Canada’s Digital Sovereignty

As important as our investment in AI infrastructure is the new company-wide initiative we are launching to protect Canada’s digital sovereignty. This builds on technology and expertise across Microsoft and is based on a five-part plan to defend Canada’s cybersecurity, keep Canadian data on Canadian soil, strengthen privacy protection, support leading local AI developers, and ensure the continuity of cloud and AI services.

Defending Canada’s cybersecurity

As we enter the second quarter of the 21^st century, the protection of digital sovereignty starts with the protection of cybersecurity. Reflecting Microsoft’s long-term presence in Canada, we appreciate how much has changed since the century began. During the first quarter of the century, Canada’s population grew by more than 28 percent and its GDP in real terms grew by more than 55 percent. Changing geopolitics and navigation in the Arctic Ocean have put Canada in a more important global position than ever.

Canada’s growth and importance have made the country a bigger cybersecurity target.

Microsoft has long prioritized the protection of Canadian cybersecurity. With unmatched threat intelligence capabilities based on 100 trillion signals from around the world every day, we’ve seen increasing international targeting of Canadian digital assets, especially from China, Russia, North Korea, and countries across south Asia and the Middle East. This has included influence operations in advance of elections and digital espionage focused on government agencies.

Even more significant, Canada’s diverse and robust economy has become a target of sophisticated international ransomware attacks. Organized criminal groups—some with nation state sponsorship—are targeting every sector of the economy and the public, and they are starting to rely on even more sophisticated technology and techniques, including AI. Our assessment is that in 2025 more than half of cyberattacks against Canada with known motives have been based on financial objectives, and 80 percent of them have involved efforts to exfiltrate data. Almost 20 percent have targeted the healthcare and education sectors, which creates more widespread threats to the public.

To strengthen our protection of Canada’s cybersecurity, we are launching today in Ottawa a dedicated Threat Intelligence Hub. This Hub will house Microsoft subject matter experts in threat intelligence, threat protection research, and applied AI security research. They will have access to Microsoft threat intelligence data and assets from around the world, so they can work closely with the Government of Canada and law enforcement partners to track and interdict nation state actors and organized crime.

In recent months, our team in Canada has been working to thwart China-based threat actors and has been sharing intelligence related to North Korean IT workers using stolen or fake identities to secure jobs with technology companies in Canada. We are dedicated to making this cybersecurity protection even stronger going forward.

Keeping Canadian Data on Canadian Soil

We also recognize the importance of ensuring that our Canadian customers can keep their local data on Canadian soil. This is why we embarked a decade ago, in close consultation with national leaders, to build and open our first two Canadian datacentres to provide local data residency in Toronto and Quebec City. We have steadily expanded our local services each year since. In 2026, we will take three new steps to keep Canadian data on Canadian soil.

First, we will strengthen sovereign controls and expand our data residency commitments by offering in-country data processing for Copilot interactions.

 

Second, we will expand our Azure Local offering in Canada to enable the extension of Azure capabilities to customer-owned environments such as private cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

And third, we will launch Sovereign AI Landing Zone (SAIL) in Canada. This is an open-source AI Landing Zone whose code will be hosted publicly on GitHub, and which will provide a secure foundation for deploying AI solutions within Canada’s borders, so organizations can build, scale, and innovate while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and compliance.

Protecting Canadian privacy

We recognize that privacy is a cornerstone of digital trust. We have long protected the digital privacy of people across Canada. As we look to 2026, we will build on this strong foundation with new technical capabilities and legal measures.

Next year, Microsoft will bring the latest confidential computing capabilities to our Canadian datacentre regions. Confidential computing in Azure enables organizations to keep data encrypted and isolated, even while in use, helping meet stringent digital sovereignty requirements. Azure Key Vault will also be available to Canadian customers, supporting external key management and allowing encryption keys to remain under customer control, whether stored on-premises or with a trusted third-party Hardware Security Module (HSM).

We will couple these technical measures with expanded contractual protection. We are codifying our promise to protect our Canadian customers’ data with a contractual commitment, in which we agree to challenge any government demand for Canadian government or commercial customer data where we have a legal basis for doing so.

Supporting Canada’s AI developers

Canada’s growing AI and digital ecosystem also requires protection and support for the nation’s leading AI developers. We have expanded this work in 2025 and will continue to prioritize these efforts in the year ahead.

Our work with Cohere exemplifies this commitment: we are welcoming Cohere into the Microsoft Foundry’s first-party model lineup, making their advanced language models—Command A, Embed 4, and Rerank—accessible on Azure. This will amplify Canadian innovation on a global stage. This partnership is built on more than technology; it is grounded in trust and shared values, with initiatives to help Cohere scale across Canada and worldwide.

We will explore new ways to integrate Cohere’s sovereign, made-in-Canada AI models into Microsoft services, helping to ensure Canadian enterprises and the public sector benefit from secure, locally developed solutions that embody responsibility and integrity. Together with Canada’s leading innovators, we are building relationships that deliver opportunity and impact while reinforcing the trusted foundation of Canadian digital sovereignty.

Defending the continuity of Canadian cloud services

Finally, in the face of geopolitical uncertainty, continuity is essential. Microsoft pledges to rigorously defend the uninterrupted operation of cloud services for Canadian government customers. If ever confronted with an order to suspend or halt operations in Canada, we will pursue every available legal and diplomatic avenue—including litigation—to protect access to critical infrastructure. Our track record demonstrates our resolve to stand up for customer rights. We remain ready to reinforce this commitment through robust contractual agreements, confident in our ability to ensure the ongoing operation of Canadian datacentres. Ultimately, these efforts aim to deepen trust between people, institutions, and nations, grounded in mutual respect and a shared commitment to advancing Canada’s digital future.

Microsoft’s digital infrastructure in Canada is not built on wheels. It is permanent infrastructure, and fully subject to Canadian laws and regulations. We recognize and respect that our operations in Canada are governed by Canadian law, just as we adhere to local laws in every country where we operate.

Talent: Investing in the Future for Every Canadian

At its core, every datacentre we build and every AI capability we deploy is an investment in Canadians and their future. Because technology alone doesn’t drive transformation, people do. That’s why it’s imperative to ensure that every Canadian can develop the skills needed to succeed in an AI era.

The need is clear. By 2030, nearly 60 percent of workers worldwide will require new digital skills, yet today only 24 percent of Canadians have received AI training, compared to a global average of 39 percent. Closing this gap is critical for Canada’s competitiveness.

Our new Microsoft Elevate business unit is designed to put people first, making AI opportunities accessible across the country. Since July 2024, Microsoft Canada has engaged 5.7 million learners through free skilling programs, with more than 546,000 individuals completing an AI training course. And we’re not stopping there. By 2026, Microsoft Elevate will help 250,000 Canadians earn in-demand AI credentials, ensuring the workforce is ready for the next decade of innovation.

Our partnerships amplify this impact. The Nonprofit AI Impact Hub, developed with the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience (CCNDR) and Imagine Canada, strengthens the digital resilience of Canada’s 170,000 charities and nonprofits, which collectively employ 2.7 million people. Through role-based AI training and micro-credentials, we’re equipping this sector with tools to serve communities better.

We’re also investing in the next generation. Today, we are proud to announce a new partnership with Actua, a national leader that brings STEM education to youth throughout Canada, including those in remote, rural, and Indigenous communities. Microsoft Canada and Actua are committed to working with Indigenous communities across Canada to support AI skills development, so that the benefits of AI are felt widely. This partnership will support Actua’s AI Ready and InSTEM (Indigenous Youth in STEM) programs, to equip 20,000 young Canadians with essential AI skills. The InSTEM program will add AI learning for Indigenous youth, blending technology with cultural heritage and knowledge. For instance, students learn how AI tools can help preserve Indigenous languages and support cultural identity.

Canada Can Count on Us

Few American companies have benefitted more than Microsoft from such longstanding ties to Canada. Living so close to the border, we have long appreciated the many attributes that make Canada so special. We share more than geography. We share priorities like security, sustainability, and inclusive growth.

Today, we’re taking this partnership to the next level. We believe Canada has what it takes to help lead the world in responsible AI innovation and adoption, and we’re committed to being a partner every step of the way.

The post Microsoft Deepens Its Commitment to Canada with Landmark $19B AI Investment appeared first on Microsoft On the Issues.

Around the world, the dangers of extreme weather are a daily reality. In 2024, extreme weather displaced or disrupted the lives of more than 800,000 people worldwide —a reminder that accurate, timely forecasts aren’t just about data; they’re about people. From farmers deciding when to plant to coastal communities preparing for hurricanes, better forecasting can save lives, protect infrastructure, and support economies. 

That is why Microsoft remains deeply committed to Aurora, an AI model designed to help scientists understand Earth systems in new ways. Trained on vast amounts of data, it’s tuned to model the Earth’s systems. Aurora has already shown promise across multiple scenarios, including predicting the weather, tracking hurricanes and air quality, and modeling ocean waves and energy flows. 

Today, we are reaffirming our commitment: keep Aurora open, collaborative, and impactful so researchers can innovate faster and deliver solutions that help communities prepare, adapt, and thrive. Scientific progress depends on openness and a strong global community, which is why Aurora will progress as an open-source platform, enabling scientists everywhere to contribute and apply it to new climate and weather challenges. 

The next phase: Fueling innovation through research partnerships

We’re collaborating with Professor Rich Turner, a leader in machine learning research, and his lab at the University of Cambridge through a Microsoft AI for Good grant and research scientists to continue development of Aurora. Originally developed by Microsoft Research AI for Science, with collaboration from Professor Turner, we believe Aurora has the potential to change the way scientists around the world can use AI for weather and climate science. 

Building on our SPARROW initiative, we’re also investing in research of open-source weather stations that can expand access to high-quality environmental data. These affordable, community-deployable systems are designed to help fill critical observation gaps and strengthen the dependability of weather predictions where they matter most. 

Making Aurora available to scientists everywhere

Aurora’s source code and model weights are already open—but we’re going further. Together with Turner and Cambridge, our AI for Good team will open-source future releases of Aurora and new models that are built upon it, including training pipelines. By making Aurora open and free to build upon, we’re enabling researchers and developers everywhere to collaborate, contribute, and drive innovation together. 

Empowering national meteorological services

As with any technology, the measure of success for tools like Aurora is to have a positive impact on the lives of people. Empowering national meteorological services across the Global South, along with the Global North, is a priority.  We’re particularly focused on the application of Aurora to help meteorological services develop and strengthen their own forecasting systems that are tailored to their own local environments. This will allow them to adapt, extend, and innovate on top of Aurora, improving the accuracy, reliability, and reach of their forecasts. 

Enabling a cross-industry ecosystem

Aurora is trained on one of the largest collections of atmospheric data ever assembled to develop an AI forecasting model. It’s then fine-tuned to perform a variety of specific tasks, like predicting wave height or air quality, using modest amounts of additional data.  

The application of such a model could unlock innovation across all kinds of other industries. For example, energy companies and commodity traders have expressed interest, particularly in seeing how Aurora can be adapted to better predict renewable power generation, anticipate extreme weather events, and help protect energy grids. 

We are excited to see our work on Aurora graduate from a research project into a truly collaborative, open-source effort. By opening Aurora to the global community, we’re enabling breakthroughs in scientific understanding that we hope will transform humanitarian aid, optimize energy systems, advance sustainability, and even reshape financial services. 

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Today, I had the pleasure of joining a range of leaders for timely, impactful discussions on child well-being in the age of AI at the Vatican, building on thoughtful conversations held during the United Nations General Assembly. These issues are top of mind globally, from parents to policymakers to physicians.

At Microsoft, we remain focused on our goal of empowering young people to use technology safely, mindfully, and in pursuit of social, educational, and economic opportunities. That means taking new steps spurred by regulation, such as new age verification measures for our UK Xbox users, as well as adapting our longstanding commitments to responsible AI and child online safety and privacy to build trust in the AI era. Today, we’re sharing new research on youth perspectives, announcing the AI Futures Youth Council to amplify teen voices, and offering policy recommendations to help families navigate the digital world with confidence.

Centering young people’s voices: Announcing the AI Futures Youth Council and new age assurance research

In 2017, Microsoft led the industry with our first Council for Digital Good—a forum where we could hear directly from young people about their experiences and perceptions of online risk. In 2025, with AI reshaping our world—and their future—we again need to center the voices of young people as we think about responsible design for AI and how we set students up for the future. We are actively working with teens from the Asia-Pacific region to develop our first “for teens, by teens” guide to AI chatbots. Today, I’m pleased to announce the upcoming launch of our first “AI Futures Youth Council,” bringing together teens from the US and Europe to have their say on their future. We’ll share more about the application process soon.

We know that a critical precursor to providing young people positive and productive online experiences is understanding which users are young people. Around the globe, the debate over how to achieve age assurance online continues unabated. We have been grateful to work with CIPL and the WeProtect Global Alliance over the last year to explore how to achieve improved age assurance that is consistent with fundamental rights of privacy and access to information. As with any other safety intervention, our goal is to be proportionate and thoughtful where we take new steps, which is why we have focused on gaming in the first instance—reflecting the responsibilities we have to our youngest users and our ongoing commitment to player safety.

To inform our strategy and the broader policy conversation, we partnered with Praesidio Safeguarding to better understand youth perspectives on age assurance approaches across the UK, Ghana, and Indonesia. We are pleased to share that research today. The findings reinforce the importance of transparency, choice, and trust: teens want clear explanations of how their data is used, express concerns about exclusion where formal proof of age is lacking and show varying comfort levels with the use of biometric and behavioral data. Notably, young people value parental involvement but also highlight the need for independence and privacy as they mature. The results also highlight some of the important differences across geographies. For example, teenagers in Ghana often not only share devices with their families but may also share an account—underscoring a need for nuanced global approaches at multiple layers of the technology stack.

These insights underscore our belief that proportionality—matching safeguards to actual risks—is essential to building trust and empowering youth online. They also highlight the need for age assurance models that are inclusive, flexible, and respectful of youth autonomy—especially in global contexts where device and account sharing are common. We remain committed to ongoing dialogue and innovation, ensuring that our solutions evolve alongside the needs and expectations of children, families, and society at large.

Our policy recommendations: Empower young people to use technology safely

We believe technology should empower young people, not put them at risk. Given the diverse range of online services, it is important to remember there is no single “digital seatbelt” to protect and empower young people online.

We therefore offer the following recommendations as policymakers, regulators, and experts continue to discuss these issues, building on our 2024 blog:

• Avoid blanket access restrictions. Age assurance requirements that block full access to a service—except in limited cases like sites dedicated to age-restricted content (e.g., pornography)—can unintentionally limit child rights, such as access to information. Instead, age assurance should be applied at the service level, target specific design features that pose heightened risks, and enable tailored experiences for children.
• Focus on the highest risks for impact, such as content and features associated with documented harms to children, and as determined through democratic processes. Providers should take steps to assess and mitigate risks to children on their services, while ensuring documentation requirements or compliance obligations do not inadvertently undermine safety. A risk-based and proportionate approach—grounded in clear criteria and supported by interoperable standards—can also help ensure that age assurance is applied where most needed, without introducing unnecessary friction. Providers of high-risk services should bear the responsibility of age assurance.

• Strengthen safeguards for AI companions. Recent tragic events have highlighted the need for continued care in developing AI companions, especially where these may be used by young people. At Microsoft, we are building AI services for empowerment and want the right guardrails in place to protect all users but welcome new, commonsense measures such as those enacted in California and Australia to reduce the potential harms related to suicide and self-injury risks, as well as to sexualized or violent content. We will continue to work closely with researchers and experts to understand and mitigate potential risks to young people in this fast-evolving field.
• Incentivize age-appropriate design. Banning kids from online services isn’t the answer, but what constitutes an “age-appropriate” experience will vary. We have supported a duty of care approach to child safety where the duty can be implemented flexibly, guided by thoughtful and evidence-based regulatory guidance. Ongoing research and expert engagement are needed to understand how to advance child safety and rights on diverse services—not just social media.
• Protect the privacy and security of all users. Tailoring age assurance requirements will help enable proportionate approaches to data processing. Current proposals for age verification by app stores risk creating significant privacy risks by collecting sensitive information and sharing unnecessary age data with a wide variety of services while also not solving the challenges lawmakers want to address. We continue to support federal privacy legislation in the US and encourage global efforts to develop standards and certifications for age assurance providers. Trusted credential sharing can also increasingly be enabled by emerging digital identity ecosystems—including government-issued IDs and wallet-based models—that preserve mutual privacy between issuers and relying parties.
• Support, not overwhelm Our Global Online Safety Survey results show that while parents might underestimate the risks teens face online, teens are most likely to turn to a parent for help. Parents should not face a deluge of notifications nor bear the sole responsibility for safety but have access, awareness, and education on family safety tools that can help them make informed choices appropriate for their family and their values.
• Foster multistakeholder collaboration. We believe it’s essential to elevate the voices and perspectives of young people, as well as for regulators and industry to engage with civil society and partner to advance practical solutions. As child safety regulations come into force, it will also be important to get feedback from affected communities on where regulation may have adverse rights impacts, as well as to understand where harm may have been averted. Public education will be needed to help all users understand why their online experiences might be changing.

We will continue learning, listening, and collaborating, especially with our new Council, and look forward to sharing our insights.

 

 

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Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work, learn, and innovate—and it’s doing so at a pace that surpasses every major technology before it. Microsoft’s inaugural AI Diffusion Report offers a comprehensive look at how AI adoption is accelerating worldwide, drawing on data from more than 100 countries. In less than three years, more than 1.2 billion people have used AI tools, a rate of adoption faster than the internet, the personal computer, or even the smartphone. This rapid diffusion underscores AI’s potential as a general-purpose technology but also highlights the urgent need to ensure equitable access.

The report introduces three indices—the AI Frontier Index, the AI Infrastructure Index, and the AI Diffusion Index—to help policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders understand where breakthroughs are happening, where capacity exists to scale, and where AI is being used to improve lives. These insights show that adoption is fastest where connectivity and digital infrastructure are strongest, while nearly four billion people still lack the basics needed to participate in the AI economy. Bridging this gap is essential to avoid deepening global divides.

Beyond the numbers, the report illustrates the need for collaborative action to expand access to digital infrastructure, strengthen skills development, and promote responsible AI policies. By investing in these foundational elements, governments and organizations can unlock AI’s potential for growth and innovation. The data makes clear that speed alone does not guarantee shared prosperity—broad accessibility does.

To explore the full findings and recommendations, read the AI Diffusion Report.

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To prepare the United Arab Emirates’ next generation for an AI-driven workforce, today we’re providing an update on our ambitious commitment to skill one million people across the UAE with an expansion of our global skilling initiative, Microsoft Elevate.

With Microsoft Elevate UAE we are making significant progress toward our goal with programs that will equip more than 250,000 students, staff, and faculty and more than 55,000 government employees with in-demand AI skills. Through sustained programs and new partnerships, Microsoft Elevate is providing advanced AI tools, in-demand credentials and comprehensive training to the region as we continue to work together to provide growth and opportunity for all.

As we shared earlier this week, Microsoft will invest USD 15.2 billion in the UAE before the end of this decade in a sustained commitment that brings together technology, talent, and trust to help the nation seize the opportunities of the AI era.

Together we will continue to ensure the region is uniquely positioned to harness this pivotal moment and remain at the forefront of AI use and innovation.

Advancing AI skills for the UAE’s next generation

As an update to our broader commitment to drive AI literacy and readiness across the UAE, Microsoft is announcing new partnerships with leading educational institutions and nonprofits to equip educators and students with essential AI skills and valuable credentials.

In close collaboration with the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications over the next year, we will provide training for more than 30,000 educators and 70,000 students across the UAE to ensure technology adoption is broad-based and that students are equipped to become leaders in AI for the future. Moreover, our technical graduate skilling program will upskill Emirati graduates, empowering them with the expertise needed to develop and train future AI models.

Our work with GEMS, the largest private school provider in the UAE, is embedding AI skills into all its schools and expanding training programs for 10,000 teachers and 150,000 students. This includes custom-built AI agents, Copilot workshops, and AI fluency programs for teachers, administrators, and students. Because preparing the future workforce starts with skilling educators, we are also focused on AI teacher readiness, with Copilot and Learning Accelerator access for almost 10,000 teachers and students in private schools across the UAE.

Through partnerships with nonprofits like INJAZ UAE, we are delivering AI Fundamentals courses to the UAE. The Skills Spot platform hosts signature courses for students, educators, and developers, credentialing over 58,000 learners in foundational AI skills, digital safety, and practical applications.

And in higher education, Microsoft has partnered with leading UAE institutions to deliver impactful skilling programs that empower both students and educators. Through collaborations such as the partnership with MBZUAI, which was awarded a Microsoft Economic AI Institute research fellowship, Microsoft is advancing AI literacy and research in the region. Microsoft has also established agreements focused on training with the Higher Colleges of Technology and UAE University. These programs are designed to equip participants with cutting-edge knowledge in artificial intelligence and digital skills, fostering innovation and enhancing the competitiveness of the UAE’s academic community. By investing in these trainings, Microsoft is helping to build a robust talent pipeline that supports the nation’s vision for a knowledge-based economy and positions graduates and educators to thrive.

Credentialing 55,000 UAE government employees and empowering future leaders

Last year, Microsoft partnered with UAE government entities to launch an initiative to upskill 120,000 government employees across the Federal Government, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah.

Today, we are announcing the next phase in our goal to equip public sector teams with AI skills that will help transform services, drive innovation, and prepare the workforce for the future

In partnership with G42, we have developed three specialized courses for government employees, delivered through the JAHIZ platform to ensure federal workers have a front-row seat in advancing their skills. This ambitious upskilling initiative for UAE federal government workers is designed to provide both foundational knowledge and real-world applications of AI for the public sector, with the goal of credentialing 55,000 federal employees over the next year. This investment in human capital will help ensure the UAE’s government is equipped to lead in digital transformation and meet the challenges of tomorrow with confidence.

We also know that preparing leaders for the future means going beyond technical skills. That’s why we continue to offer high-impact, in-person leadership development programs for government executives, CEOs, and senior decision-makers. Developed last year in collaboration with INSEAD, these tracks focus on strategic thinking, digital transformation, and the responsible adoption of AI. By building leadership capacity and fostering innovation, we are helping government entities across the UAE embrace change and realize the full potential of AI for the benefit of all. To date, we have partnered with INSEAD and learning partners locally to train 1,200 senior leaders across the UAE government and are proud to continue this effort to help strengthen the UAE’s position as a global leader in responsible AI governance.

Microsoft Elevate: A promise to the UAE

As AI and digital transformation reshape the world, closing the digital divide and expanding opportunities for all require collaboration across government, education, civil society, and industry. That’s why skilling is at the core of our commitment.

The UAE stands out as a leader in AI adoption, according to Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Technical Report. Yet, a significant skills gap remains, with more than 40% of working-age adults not yet using AI in the region. Initiatives like those we announced today in partnership with the Ministry of Education and others will continue to help address these gaps—and we are not done.

At Microsoft, we look forward to continuing our three decades of partnership across the region and bringing our capacity-building programs to the UAE through Microsoft Elevate. Our work together with local partners is not just a program; it is a promise to support the nation’s vision, empower its people, and help create universal opportunity.

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At Microsoft, we are driven by the belief that technology has the power to create opportunity and growth for everyone. This conviction inspired the creation of TechSpark, a nationwide program designed to expand economic opportunity in local communities, bridge digital gaps, and ensure everyone can participate in the digital future.

As AI continues to accelerate innovation nationwide, today we welcome the 2026 TechSpark Fellows whose visionary organizations are at the forefront of harnessing AI and cloud technology to drive transformative impact and empower their communities throughout the United States. In addition to honoring these incredible individuals and organizations, today we also announce the expansion of the TechSpark Fellows program as we launch a new Alumni program, which together creates a national network of community innovators and leaders who share best practices, resources, and ideas to ensure their communities can leverage the power of technology to thrive.

Since launching the TechSpark Fellows program in 2023, Fellow organizations have joined forces with Microsoft to bridge digital divides and spark innovation. Collectively, these Fellow organizations have secured more than $249 million in follow-on funding, trained over 34,000 individuals in AI, data literacy, and emerging technologies, and built partnerships connecting public, private, and nonprofit organizations with new digital tools.

With the introduction of the new 2026 TechSpark Fellows cohort, we are proud to continue building on our tradition of driving meaningful impact across the nation. Today, a TechSpark Fellow or Alumni leader can be found in every single state, as well as in more than 11 Microsoft data center communities. This widespread presence ensures that our efforts to make a difference in local communities are closely connected with our ongoing investments in infrastructure technology. By maintaining this strong network of leaders, we can foster community impact and support the growth of technology initiatives hand in hand, ensuring that progress and opportunity reach even more people across the United States.

The TechSpark program has made a significant difference in communities from California to New Jersey, across Georgia to Tennessee, and many places in between. These efforts have resulted in the creation of more than 5,100 jobs, the training of over 72,000 individuals in artificial intelligence and digital skills, and the mobilization of more than $728 million in community funding to support local projects.

 Welcoming the 2026 TechSpark Fellows

Each year, Microsoft TechSpark Fellows are appointed by nonprofit or community organizations that apply through a national call for participation. Each organization then receives a grant to support and scale their mission and can participate in a robust, seven-month learning and development experience designed to advance AI skilling, innovation, and adoption to support opportunity within their community.

TechSpark Fellows from these organizations are already shaping projects that range from empowering women to reenter the workforce through AI upskilling to building rural digital academies to advancing youth coding and data science programs.  Below are just a few inspiring examples of this year’s TechSpark Fellows and the unique ways they are driving positive change in their communities:

The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition and Institute  

The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition and Institute is strengthening the job pipeline in Illinois by connecting high school students with industry mentors for months-long, hands-on projects that reflect real workforce needs. Students work directly with professionals, including Microsoft mentors, on challenges tied to current industry priorities, gaining the skills, confidence, and experience needed to pursue careers in STEM fields. Through participation in the TechSpark Fellows program, the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition and Institute aims to expand opportunities for more schools and students across Illinois—deepening industry partnerships, strengthening hands-on learning, and preparing young people for future careers in STEM fields.

Climb Wyoming  

Climb Wyoming transforms lives by helping low-income single mothers discover their full potential through integrated career training, mental health support, and meaningful employment with local employers. In Wyoming, single mothers and their children experience the highest rates of poverty in the United States, making Climb’s work both urgent and essential. The program provides immediate support and pathways to economic independence. On average, Climb graduates more than double their income two years after the program—a 121% increase in wages.  As a TechSpark Fellow, Climb Wyoming looks to learn how to leverage AI and digital skilling to enhance career training for the women they serve.

Compudopt Georgia 

 Compudopt is closing the digital divide for families nationwide by providing free laptops and comprehensive tech education programs, from first graders to seniors. In 2025, Compudopt celebrated reaching one million people, offering digital literacy training that empowers entire households to thrive in a connected world. As part of the TechSpark Fellows program, Compudopt wants to learn how  AI can further strengthen their mission, exploring new ways AI can enhance digital skilling, expand access, and help families unlock opportunities for work, learning, and daily life.

Building AI readiness for all

As we look to the future, we believe our responsibility is to continue to empower others and support their missions. The TechSpark Fellows program is just one way that we can leverage the power of technology and community to ensure that the promise of AI reaches every community across America. The progress made through TechSpark—helping leaders secure resources, equipping individuals with critical skills, and fostering innovation—demonstrates what’s possible when we work together.

The contrast in AI use across  the United States reveals not just a disparity in adoption but a fundamental challenge in ensuring that AI brings people together rather than widening existing divides. Achieving an inclusive  AI economy will require ongoing collaboration with local leaders, nonprofits, policymakers, and peers in the private sector.

TechSpark has shown that community and local leaders are the biggest assets in ensuring their home states, hometowns, and neighbors thrive. By listening deeply, partnering with purpose, and building strong connections with local changemakers, we can make certain that everyone has the tools, opportunities, and support to thrive in the AI era.

For more insights and resources, visit the TechSpark Playbook and the TechSpark Impact Report.

 

 

 

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As Abu Dhabi and Dubai kick off a significant week hosting annual energy and technology conferences, we want to share details of our ongoing and planned investments in the United Arab Emirates. Roughly two and a half years ago, we embarked on a new AI initiative with the encouragement and support of both the United States and UAE governments. Much of this progress has involved a new partnership with G42, the UAE’s sovereign AI company, with whom we’re making critical progress.   

All told, Microsoft will invest $15.2 billion USD in the UAE between the start of this initiative in 2023 and the end of this decade, in 2029. This is not money raised in the UAE. It’s money we’re spending in the UAE. And as we do everywhere in the world, we’re focused not just on growing our business but also on contributing to the local economy. This involves bringing together three critical factors – technology, talent, and trust.   

On some days, it feels like the tech sector is gripped in a rhetorical race to announce ever larger, sky-high numbers. We believe in moving fast while staying grounded and being transparent about our investment details. And we want to share our strong conviction that our investments benefit the shareholders of our company, the people of the UAE, and the relationship between our two nations.   

Our investment numbers  

Our $15.2 billion USD investment includes the following:  

• Beginning in 2023 and through the end of this calendar year, Microsoft will have invested and spent just over $7.3 billion in the UAE. This includes our $1.5 billion equity investment in G42, more than $4.6 billion in capital expenses in advanced AI and cloud datacenters in the country, and more than $1.2 billion in local operating expenses and the cost of goods sold.   

• From the start of 2026 to the end of 2029, we will spend more than $7.9 billion in the UAE. This includes more than $5.5 billion in capital expenses for ongoing and planned expansion of our AI and cloud infrastructure, including new steps we will share publicly in Abu Dhabi this week. It also includes almost $2.4 billion in planned local operating expenses and the cost of goods sold.  

An investment in world-leading technology  

Some of our most important work involves exporting world-leading technology from the United States to the UAE. This includes the GPUs essential to power AI in our datacenters across the country that support the UAE’s people and institutions.  

Microsoft was one of the few companies during the previous administration to secure export licenses from the Commerce Department to ship GPUs to the UAE. In no small measure, this is because of the substantial work we did to meet the strong cybersecurity, national security, and other technology conditions required by these licenses. These licenses enabled us to accumulate in the country the equivalent of 21,500 Nvidia A100 GPUs, based on a combination of A100, H100, and H200 chips.  

Microsoft was also the first company this year under the Trump administration to secure export licenses from the Commerce Department to ship GPUs to the UAE. Approved in September, these were based on updated and stringent technology safeguards. These licenses enable us to ship the equivalent of 60,400 additional A100 chips, in this instance involving Nvidia’s even more advanced GB300 GPUs.  

While the chips are powerful and the numbers are large, more important is their positive impact across the UAE. We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself. We’re supporting AI-enabled applications, including our Copilot applications, from a wide variety of local and international providers. And we’re partnering with G42 to support public and private sector organizations across the UAE economy, as well as consumers across the country.  

The UAE’s ranking in the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report published last week shows the country leading the world in per capita AI usage. With 59.4 percent of the population using generative AI, the UAE is ahead of Singapore, which is in second place at 58.6 percent. Beyond these two, no other country tops the 50 percent mark. Microsoft’s infrastructure challenge in the UAE is not a risk of getting ahead of demand but keeping pace with it.  

Investing in talent  

Microsoft’s investment in the UAE is not just about technology, it’s also about people. By cultivating AI talent and skilling individuals to develop, deploy, and use AI in a way that reflects the region’s unique needs, Microsoft is helping to ensure that the UAE remains on the leading edge of AI diffusion.  

Today, Microsoft’s presence in the UAE reflects this commitment. Our growing team includes almost 1,000 full-time employees and related staff representing 40 nationalities. Nearly 100 of our employees are engineers, supported by an Emirati partner ecosystem that has grown almost threefold in just two years, now with 1,400 firms employing nearly 45,000 professionals across the country.  

This year, we established the Global Engineering Development Center in Abu Dhabi to attract world-class tech talent to the UAE. Our engineers not only develop new products and services for Microsoft, but support institutions and businesses across the region so they can use AI and cloud technologies to transform their own operations. As we look to the future, we aspire to grow our engineering teams further and add a new focus on domain-specific AI models and applications that will propel advances in key scientific and technological fields.  

We also opened a new center for the Microsoft AI for Good Lab in Abu Dhabi, staffed by PhD level research talent specializing in large-scale AI models, vision-language models, and post training techniques. Backed by Azure compute grants allocated to partner organizations, this team collaborates with nonprofits, start-ups, researchers, academic institutions, and local businesses to address humanitarian challenges across the Middle East and Africa using AI. Already, the Lab has partnered with researchers to train large language models for low-resource languages, including those spoken in Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – helping ensure that AI serves communities that risk being left behind in the AI age.    

As the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report underscores, people need digital proficiency to fully participate in an AI-driven economy. Without the right skills, AI risks deepening inequality rather than broadening opportunity. That’s why skilling is a core pillar of our investment in the UAE.   

Last November, we committed to skill one million people in the UAE by the end of 2027–and we’re well on our way to meet – and exceed–our goal. Last month at GITEX, Microsoft partnered with UAE government entities to launch an initiative to upskill 120,000 government employees across the federal government, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah. We will also skill 175,000 students and 39,000 teachers through collaborations with GEMS, Abu Dhabi Department of Education (ADEK), and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA). We will announce new steps in this area on Thursday in Dubai.  

Talent is the engine of AI leadership. Attracting, nurturing, and building AI talent and know-how is essential to the UAE turning its vision of becoming a global leader into a reality.   

Strengthening trust   

Ultimately, the use of AI depends on trust. People and institutions need to trust that AI will be developed and deployed with responsible safeguards. They need to have confidence that the cybersecurity of AI chips, models, and services will be protected. And they rightly expect AI to serve the public broadly, with cause for optimism that AI will reach and support the Global South.  

Given the role of export controls and other trade issues, the flow of advanced GPUs and AI models also requires trust between nations. This in turn requires clear rules and agreements, coupled with effective compliance systems. And as always, trust between nations depends on strong relationships between its people, grounded in mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s cultures.  

We’re focused on supporting all these needs.   

One important part of this is the Responsible AI Future Foundation, or RAIFF. G42, Microsoft, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) founded this new foundation in Abu Dhabi in February to promote responsible AI standards and best practices in the Middle East and across the Global South. This foundation is advancing research on the technical and ethical elements of responsible AI and is developing frameworks to ensure ethical development and deployment of AI systems, accounting for cultural diversity.   

A second element comes to life through the first annual Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit, which began Sunday. Hosted by G42, Microsoft, the Responsible AI Future Foundation, and Eurasia Group’s GZERO Media, this Summit brings government ministers, private sector executives, and AI leaders together to discuss what’s needed to drive AI diffusion across the Global South. We meet at a time when there is a growing risk that uneven AI diffusion may widen the economic and societal gaps that divide the world. It’s imperative that governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations collaborate and take new steps to promote broader access to AI.  

Both these elements build on a third and deeper initiative that Microsoft and G42 have advanced during the past two years. In conjunction with our $1.5 billion investment, Microsoft and G42 created last April a first–of–its–kind binding framework between two private companies. Developed in close consultation with the U.S. and UAE governments, this Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement (IGAA) ensures that both our companies meet or exceed U.S. standards in critical areas such as cybersecurity and physical security, export controls and technology transfer, data protection and responsible AI, and Know Your Customer (KYC) best practices.   

As we drafted the IGAA, we consulted not only leaders from government ministries in our two countries, but with members and staff of both political parties in both houses of Congress in Washington, D.C. We listened to feedback and adapted the IGAA to address their suggestions. And we’ve built a strong compliance infrastructure to implement these requirements based on industry best practices and auditing standards.   

All these steps help bolster mutual confidence and trust between our two governments. But trust between nations also grows through relationships among people. That’s why we’re advancing a fourth and new element this week, traveling to Abu Dhabi with a Seattle delegation of public and private leaders. The group includes a former Governor and local leaders in economic development, higher education, medical research, the non-profit community, and sports. The goal is to deepen understanding, exchange ideas, and explore solutions that can advance both regions.   

Looking to the future  

Microsoft is committed to the future of the UAE and a strong relationship between our two nations. We believe in the UAE’s long-term economic vision and the role the UAE and the U.S. continue to play together to support peace, stability, and growth across the Middle East.  

As we do everywhere we do business, Microsoft is committed to a broad perspective and long-term approach. Our work in the UAE has underscored the importance of connecting technology investments to initiatives to attract and develop the talent needed for a vibrant and self-sustaining tech ecosystem. And work to advance trust, which may seem peripheral to some, is in fact of central importance. From stronger business practices to broader international ties, trust is a critical catalyst for technology success at a local and global level.  

Technology is our business and we’re as excited as anyone by its potential. But we know that ultimately there is only one test that matters. It’s how our technology empowers others to achieve more. Like every public company, our shareholders rightly expect us to deliver value to customers in ways that enable us to continue to grow. But we also judge ourselves by whether we are generating local opportunities and growth that go well beyond ourselves. Across the UAE, we’re committed to passing this test.  

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AI has introduced a transformative era in scientific discovery. In the hands of researchers, innovators, and startups, it is accelerating breakthroughs from advancing medical research to powering new manufacturing capabilities and energy transitions.  

For Microsoft, the real promise of AI emerges when we bring our powerful tools together with problem solvers in local communities. For the past eight years, Microsoft has been sharing knowledge and collaborating with communities to unlock opportunity through Microsoft TechSpark, an economic development, skilling, and community-building program across the US. Since its inception, TechSpark has helped create more than 4,500 jobs and contributed more than $700 million in community funding to support local initiatives. 

Today, we’re announcing a new milestone in our TechSpark program: a pioneering partnership with leading innovation centers—TitletownTech, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the New Jersey (NJ) AI Hub, in partnership with Princeton University. Together, we’re launching a new model for scientific collaboration that combines the agility of a startup, the expertise of a university, and the technology of a global company.  

Through this partnership, Microsoft will provide the Microsoft Discovery platform to TitletownTech and NJ AI Hub and access to the latest advancements in AI and high-performance computing that promise to accelerate scientific discovery. We believe this kind of alliance is essential to ensure that breakthroughs in science and solutions to global challenges are not confined to a few but shared broadly for the benefit of all.

A new model for scientific discovery 

Researchers and innovators from these organizations will have an opportunity to access Microsoft Discovery, an advanced agentic AI platform designed to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. They will also benefit from the expertise of the Microsoft Discovery and Quantum team, under the leadership of Jason Zander. Currently available only in private preview, this opportunity enables researchers to leverage state-of-the-art AI and high-performance computing to collaborate with a team of specialized AI agents combined with a graph-based knowledge engine to drive scientific outcomes with speed, scale, and accuracy. 

Through Microsoft Discovery, researchers can speed up scientific discovery by analyzing vast amounts of data, simulating experiments, and uncovering new materials and solutions more efficiently. The platform facilitates effective collaboration, bringing together teams of specialized AI agents and human experts for continuous, iterative investigation. This dynamic environment helps organizations refine their knowledge, learn from their results, and innovate in ways that were previously unimaginable. 

What makes this partnership unique is its focus on real breakthroughs in chemistry, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and AI-driven innovation. Building on years of TechSpark collaboration, this initiative is not just another corporate research and development center or a one-off research grant. Instead, we are creating a shared undertaking, deeply rooted in engagement with local communities and aligned around the promise of AI. By blending the strengths of top research universities with the cutting-edge infrastructure of the NJ AI Hub and TitletownTech Labs and Microsoft’s role as an industry convener, we hope to set the stage for transformative progress. 

Collaborating for real-world impact 

While we are still in the early days of what’s possible, we are dedicated to discovering what can be achieved when our institutions work together to accelerate science and innovation.  

This technology could be a game-changer for environmental challenges like plastic waste. For example, Microsoft Discovery can enable modeling of complex chemical reactions, unlocking new pathways for catalyst design in recycling systems. This would enable more efficient, selective, and controlled recycling processes, fewer costly lab experiments, and faster innovation. In the future, advances like these could empower researchers to turn plastic waste into valuable resources. 

In Microsoft’s own labs, the integration of high-performance computing and AI into Microsoft Discovery is already unlocking new scenarios. For instance, our researchers used Discovery’s advanced AI systems and HPC capabilities to discover a novel sustainable coolant prototype for datacenter immersion cooling—moving from digital discovery to synthesis in just four months. 

Looking ahead 

We are putting the Microsoft Discovery platform into the hands of innovators, like those at TitletownTech and the NJ AI Hub, to fuel innovation and demonstrate real-world impact. 

In the coming weeks, we will work to enable access to Microsoft Discovery for these labs under the private preview, and as we roll out the Discovery platform availability to the public, we will continue to work with these partners and other researchers and universities to ensure we expand opportunity for scientific discovery through AI.  

It’s only with a strong ecosystem that we’ll be able to realize the full potential of Microsoft Discovery, and it’s why we’re working with these partners and others to bring first-party advancements together with leading industry tools and domain expertise. 

With this new chapter for our TechSpark partners, we reaffirm our commitment to championing innovation and discovery alongside the brilliant local innovators across Wisconsin and New Jersey. Together, we look forward to shaping the future of science for everyone.

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In 80% of the cyber incidents Microsoft’s security teams investigated last year, attackers sought to steal data—a trend driven more by financial gain than intelligence gathering. According to the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report, written with our Chief Information Security Officer Igor Tsyganskiy, over half of cyberattacks with known motives were driven by extortion or ransomware. That’s at least 52% of incidents fueled by financial gain, while attacks focused solely on espionage made up just 4%. Nation-state threats remain a serious and persistent threat, but most of the immediate attacks organizations face today come from opportunistic criminals looking to make a profit.

Every day, Microsoft processes more than 100 trillion signals, blocks approximately 4.5 million new malware attempts, analyzes 38 million identity risk detections, and screens 5 billion emails for malware and phishing. Advances in automation and readily available off-the-shelf tools have enabled cybercriminals—even those with limited technical expertise—to expand their operations significantly. The use of AI has further added to this trend with cybercriminals accelerating malware development and creating more realistic synthetic content, enhancing the efficiency of activities such as phishing and ransomware attacks. As a result, opportunistic malicious actors now target everyone—big or small—making cybercrime a universal, ever-present threat that spills into our daily lives.

In this environment, organizational leaders must treat cybersecurity as a core strategic priority—not just an IT issue—and build resilience into their technology and operations from the ground up. In our sixth annual Microsoft Digital Defense Report, which covers trends from July 2024 through June 2025, we highlight that legacy security measures are no longer enough; we need modern defenses leveraging AI and strong collaboration across industries and governments to keep pace with the threat. For individuals, simple steps like using strong security tools—especially phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA)—makes a big difference, as MFA can block over 99% of identity-based attacks. Below are some of the key findings.

Critical services are prime targets with a real-world impact

Malicious actors remain focused on attacking critical public services—targets that, when compromised, can have a direct and immediate impact on people’s lives. Hospitals and local governments, for example, are all targets because they store sensitive data or have tight cybersecurity budgets with limited incident response capabilities, often resulting in outdated software. In the past year, cyberattacks on these sectors had real-world consequences, including delayed emergency medical care, disrupted emergency services, canceled school classes, and halted transportation systems.

Ransomware actors in particular focus on these critical sectors because of the targets’ limited options. For example, a hospital must quickly resolve its encrypted systems, or patients could die, potentially leaving no other recourse but to pay. Additionally, governments, hospitals, and research institutions store sensitive data that criminals can steal and monetize through illicit marketplaces on the dark web, fueling downstream criminal activity. Government and industry can collaborate to strengthen cybersecurity in these sectors—particularly for the most vulnerable. These efforts are critical to protecting communities and ensuring continuity of care, education, and emergency response.

Nation-state actors are expanding operations

While cybercriminals are the biggest cyber threat by volume, nation-state actors still target key industries and regions, expanding their focus on espionage and, in some cases, on financial gain. Geopolitical objectives continue to drive a surge in state-sponsored cyber activity, with a notable expansion in targeting communications, research, and academia.

Key insights:

• China is continuing its broad push across industries to conduct espionage and steal sensitive data. State-affiliated actors are increasingly attacking non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to expand their insights and are using covert networks and vulnerable internet-facing devices to gain entry and avoid detection. They have also become faster at operationalizing newly disclosed vulnerabilities.
• Iran is going after a wider range of targets than ever before, from the Middle East to North America, as part of broadening espionage operations. Recently, three Iranian state-affiliated actors attacked shipping and logistics firms in Europe and the Persian Gulf to gain ongoing access to sensitive commercial data, raising the possibility that Iran may be pre-positioning to have the ability to interfere with commercial shipping operations.
• Russia, while still focused on the war in Ukraine, has expanded its targets. For example, Microsoft has observed Russian state-affiliated actors targeting small businesses in countries supporting Ukraine. In fact, outside of Ukraine, the top ten countries most affected by Russian cyber activity all belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—a 25% increase compared to last year. Russian actors may view these smaller companies as possibly less resource-intensive pivot points they can use to access larger organizations. These actors are also increasingly leveraging the cybercriminal ecosystem for their attacks.
• North Korea remains focused on revenue generation and espionage. In a trend that has gained significant attention, thousands of state-affiliated North Korean remote IT workers have applied for jobs with companies around the world, sending their salaries back to the government as remittances. When discovered, some of these workers have turned to extortion as another approach to bringing in money for the regime.

The cyber threats posed by nation-states are becoming more expansive and unpredictable. In addition, the shift by at least some nation-state actors to further leveraging the cybercriminal ecosystem will make attribution even more complicated. This underscores the need for organizations to stay abreast of the threats to their industries and work with both industry peers and governments to confront the threats posed by nation-state actors.

2025 saw an escalation in the use of AI by both attackers and defenders

Over the past year, both attackers and defenders harnessed the power of generative AI. Threat actors are using AI to boost their attacks by automating phishing, scaling social engineering, creating synthetic media, finding vulnerabilities faster, and creating malware that can adapt itself. Nation-state actors, too, have continued to incorporate AI into their cyber influence operations. This activity has picked up in the past six months as actors use the technology to make their efforts more advanced, scalable, and targeted.

For defenders, AI is also proving to be a valuable tool. Microsoft, for example, uses AI to spot threats, close detection gaps, catch phishing attempts, and protect vulnerable users. As both the risks and opportunities of AI rapidly evolve, organizations must prioritize securing their AI tools and training their teams. Everyone—from industry to government—must be proactive to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated attackers and to ensure that defenders keep ahead of adversaries.

Adversaries aren’t breaking in; they’re signing in

Amid the growing sophistication of cyber threats, one statistic stands out: more than 97% of identity attacks are password attacks. In the first half of 2025 alone, identity-based attacks surged by 32%. That means the vast majority of malicious sign-in attempts an organization might receive are via large-scale password guessing attempts. Attackers get usernames and passwords (“credentials”) for these bulk attacks largely from credential leaks.

However, credential leaks aren’t the only place where attackers can obtain credentials. This year, we saw a surge in the use of infostealer malware by cybercriminals. Infostealers can secretly gather credentials and information about your online accounts, like browser session tokens, at scale. Cybercriminals can then buy this stolen information on cybercrime forums, making it easy for anyone to access accounts for purposes such as the delivery of ransomware.

Luckily, the solution to identity compromise is simple. The implementation of phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA) can stop over 99% of this type of attack even if the attacker has the correct username and password combination. To target the malicious supply chain, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) is fighting back against the cybercriminal use of infostealers. In May, the DCU disrupted the most popular infostealer—Lumma Stealer—alongside the US Department of Justice and Europol.

Moving forward: Cybersecurity is a shared defensive priority

As threat actors grow more sophisticated, persistent, and opportunistic, organizations must stay vigilant, continually updating their defenses and sharing intelligence. Microsoft remains committed to doing its part to strengthen our products and services via our Secure Future Initiative. We also continue to collaborate with others to track threats, alert targeted customers, and share insights with the broader public when appropriate.

However, security is not only a technical challenge but a governance imperative. Defensive measures alone are not enough to deter nation-state adversaries. Governments must build frameworks that signal credible and proportionate consequences for malicious activity that violates international rules. Encouragingly, governments are increasingly attributing cyberattacks to foreign actors and imposing consequences such as indictments and sanctions. This growing transparency and accountability are important steps toward building collective deterrence. As digital transformation accelerates—amplified by the rise of AI—cyber threats pose risks to economic stability, governance, and personal safety. Addressing these challenges requires not only technical innovation but coordinated societal action.

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