Technology

At Microsoft, our vision is to empower scientists with the latest breakthroughs in AI to unlock their full creative potential and tackle some of our most pressing challenges. This vision will require bringing the full power of generative AI together with quantum-classical hybrid computing to augment every stage of the scientific method. Whether expanding knowledge research, creating better hypotheses, or accelerating experimentation and analyses, doing so demands a purpose-built cloud platform for science. This is why we built Azure Quantum Elements for chemistry and materials science.
Today, we’re announcing Generative Chemistry and Accelerated DFT, which will expand the ways researchers can harness the full power of this platform. These breakthrough capabilities will empower scientists to compress the next 250 years of chemistry into the next 25.
With Generative Chemistry, we want to broaden the horizons of scientific exploration. Researchers can generate and explore novel molecules suited for specific industry applications using the latest AI models trained on hundreds of millions of compounds, and then evaluate the steps suggested by the workflow for synthesizing the most promising candidates in a lab more efficiently — all in a matter of days rather than years.
With Accelerated DFT, researchers can expedite and scale their chemical discovery pipelines by simulating the quantum-mechanical properties of molecules at an unprecedented speed — an order of magnitude faster compared to other Density Functional Theory (DFT) codes.
This brings us closer to a new paradigm for scientific discovery, where advanced AI and digital tools are more accessible than ever to scientists, students, and labs across industries. Below is our vision for how researchers will be able to leverage these breakthrough capabilities to design new molecules and enable the transformation of entire sectors from consumer goods and medicine, to manufacturing and energy, in turn addressing some of our most pressing societal challenges.
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We’re working towards this vision today. As part of the private preview of Azure Quantum Elements, scientists and developers have the opportunity to explore Accelerated DFT today, with the potential to access Generative Chemistry in the coming weeks.
We’re already putting our vision into practice by collaborating with Unilever, a global leader in consumer goods, which serves over 3.4 billion people every single day. Unilever is harnessing the power of Microsoft supercomputing and AI services to support their digital R&D transformation and product innovation.
Integrating AI into every stage of the scientific method
From global ambitions like reversing climate change and pioneering renewable energy sources to personal ones like living more sustainably and using healthier and safer products, we all want to do our part to create a better world. Time is of the essence for many of these goals, with more than 8 million scientists1 around the globe working to pioneer innovative solutions and unlock progress. At Microsoft, we aim to empower them with state-of-the-art digital tools to harness the full collective ingenuity of every researcher and lab around the world.
Just as generative AI has unleashed new waves of creativity and improved productivity with collaborative tools like Copilot, we are now bringing AI and natural language processing capabilities to science. Our goal is to integrate AI reasoning into every stage of the scientific method: this requires the power of next-generation AI models to speed up the scientific process from hypothesis to results. It starts with knowledge research and hypothesis generation, connecting the dots by generating millions of potential molecular candidate solutions, then narrowing down candidates with digital experiments and analyzing the outcomes — all in a matter of days. We demonstrated how this approach can land real-world results in our collaboration with PNNL, where we screened over 32 million candidates to discover and synthesize a new material that holds the potential for better batteries — a tangible example of the possibilities in this new era of scientific discovery.
When powered by natural language tools, this new paradigm will help create an autonomous reasoning loop with AI at every stage as a scientific assistant. It will redefine how we approach innovation by democratizing these capabilities for breakthrough discoveries.
Our goal is to integrate AI into every stage of the scientific method, from initial research and hypothesis generation to experimentation and analysis. Announcing new capabilities in Azure Quantum Elements
Generative Chemistry will unleash a new wave of creativity for scientists tasked with discovering and designing new molecules. This will enable breakthrough growth across many industries, whether helping an oil and gas company discover a stronger fuel additive for enhancing the longevity of engine life, or an adhesive firm creating a new chemical for strengthening adhesion while removing unwanted residue.
We could compare this discovery process to searching for a small box in a large, crowded and dark warehouse with one small flashlight. We can only focus the light on a small area at a time while the rest of the warehouse remains completely dark and unknown. Generative AI gives us a much smarter light that can point in new directions, providing visibility where we may not have considered – or have been able – to look before.
Researchers can ask Generative Chemistry for molecules with desired characteristics, such as the ability to degrade rapidly or be recycled more easily. They can also provide information about their targeted application and let the system help determine relevant molecular properties. After a few more steps, they receive a set of candidates — matching those parameters — for further study.
However, simply generating candidates is not sufficient for transforming the discovery process with AI. The essential criteria for computational tools in chemistry are that they help scientists discover molecules that are novel, synthesizable and useful in the real world. This is why I’m excited to see our approach to Generative Chemistry come to life, suggesting molecules that have not been seen before, with useful properties tuned for a specific application, and whose synthesis is feasible in a reasonable number of steps.
For this reason, Generative Chemistry will offer researchers potential steps to consider as they develop their “recipe” for synthesizing these molecular candidates in a laboratory. Support for this critical component has been developed from the capabilities of our AutoRXN software, exploring chemical reactions in reverse order, which can help to evaluate synthesis pathways for creating a target molecule.
After scientists specify the desired characteristics of a molecule, they receive thousands of molecular candidates that can be further refined through AI inferences and subsequent HPC simulations, arriving at a select few that show the most promise for laboratory synthesis and further experimental exploration. This capability is truly groundbreaking for scientific discovery. Businesses and research groups can look for efficient, cost-effective and innovative methods to develop new molecules in a matter of days, compressing the iterative process of extensive database searches and trial-and-error laboratory experiments. This end-to-end workflow will provide scientists with entirely new compounds that could lead to the next breakthrough in manufacturing, medicine and more.
We’re also announcing Accelerated DFT to offer a simplified and more powerful quantum chemistry solution for scientists. For the past few decades, DFT has been an extremely popular method used across a variety of molecular simulations, helping researchers to simulate and study the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and nanoparticles, as well as surfaces and interfaces.
We can liken molecular systems to traffic systems, where cars moving in various directions at different speeds represent electrons. From a traffic helicopter, we can observe the overall flow of traffic even if we don’t know each car’s speed and destination. DFT provides this “helicopter view’” of molecular systems, simplifying the complex task of tracking individual electrons by instead mapping out the “density” of them at a higher altitude.
Such DFT simulations can be complex to optimize and run, and often require supercomputer-scale resources. This is why our managed DFT service, based on innovation developed by Microsoft Research, enables researchers to perform substantially faster calculations than other DFT codes and offers a 20-fold average increase in speed compared to PySCF, a widely used open-source DFT code.
Accelerated DFT is already used by many organizations such as AspenTech, DTU Energy University of Denmark and Unilever. It seamlessly integrates into broader chemistry and materials science workflows, and paves the way for expediting innovations in therapeutics, environmental sustainability and beyond.
You can learn more about this announcement in the technical blog, Introducing two powerful new capabilities in Azure Quantum Elements: Generative Chemistry and Accelerated DFT.
Pioneering a new scientific discovery paradigm with Unilever
Unilever stands at the forefront of the consumer goods industry, with a strong portfolio of household brands that are used by 3.4 billion people every day, including Dove, TRESemmé, Omo, Degree, Hellmann’s and Ben & Jerry’s. Whether cleaning, beauty or care products, each requires the latest scientific breakthroughs to ensure the best possible consumer experience and enhance daily life.
Over the past two and a half years, Unilever has worked with Microsoft to identify new digital capabilities to drive product innovation forward. Unilever is bringing its digital vision to life through the transformational DataLab — its digital counterpart to the company’s physical laboratories — with the help of Microsoft Azure. From unlocking the secrets of our skin’s microbiome to reducing the carbon footprint of a multi-billion-dollar business, Unilever is redefining what it means to be a consumer goods company in the modern world with leading science.
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With Copilot and the advanced simulation capabilities of Azure Quantum Elements, Unilever can query scientific information using natural language, performing thousands of computational simulations in the time it would take to run tens of laboratory experiments. Unilever scientists can use the data gathered from these simulations to fine-tune models that screen tens of thousands of materials at substantial speed or enable the exploration of intricate chemical reactions.
For example, R&D teams can expand their search space for novel molecules that restore natural bonds in hair fibers across more hair types, in turn redefining the standards of personalized hair care for brands like Dove and TRESemmé. Furthermore, by placing scaled simulations at the forefront of the discovery funnel, Unilever will be further empowered to expedite the delivery of solutions within their key sustainability focus areas.
Expanding quantum capabilities in Azure Quantum Elements
We stand on the cusp of unprecedented innovation, and at Microsoft, we continue to pioneer state-of-the-art solutions to usher in a new era of scientific discovery. We remain focused on achieving scaled quantum computing and more breakthroughs on our path to engineering our topological qubits with inherent hardware-level stability.
Earlier this year, we demonstrated with Quantinuum the most reliable logical qubits on record, further advancing the state-of-the-art for quantum computing. And recently, we simulated a chemical catalyst combining classical supercomputers, AI and logical qubits created with Microsoft’s qubit-virtualization system and Quantinuum’s H1 hardware. This combination holds the key to unlocking scientific breakthroughs enabled by a new generation of hybrid-computing applications.
In the coming months, we will bring advanced logical qubit capabilities using our software and Quantinuum’s hardware in private preview in Azure Quantum Elements. As logical qubit capabilities scale to deliver increasingly reliable results, we will unlock simulation accuracy, moving us from scientific advantage to commercial advantage, and ultimately to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Accelerating scientific discovery, together
We’re committed to advancing these technologies responsibly, always focusing on innovation, empowerment and trust. That’s why we are committed to responsible computing practices and the Microsoft AI principles, to help ensure that safety measures adequately account for the increasing power of AI and quantum.
For more information about today’s announcements:
Sign up to learn more about Accelerated DFT and Generative Chemistry, as part of the private preview of Azure Quantum Elements. Read the technical blog, Introducing two powerful new capabilities in Azure Quantum Elements: Generative Chemistry and Accelerated DFT. Register for our upcoming ACS Webinar Check out the upcoming Future of Cloud webinar series about our vision to accelerate scientific discovery for business innovation. Top image: Leaders from Unilever and Microsoft discuss the Azure Quantum Elements program.
Sources
1. “Statistics and resources | 2021 Science Report.” This translates into 8.854 million full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers by 2018”.
The post Empowering every scientist with AI-augmented scientific discovery appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.
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In the face of adversity, the ability to continue to move forward, inspire and spark change is something to celebrate. Even small change is hugely meaningful because progress often comes from small steps of affirmation, resistance and perhaps, even most importantly, celebration. That’s why the LGBTQIA+ communities at Microsoft centered our 2024 Pride campaign on the idea of “Radical joy.” The joy that radiates and inspires. The joy that is not dependent on outside forces but is within us and within our control, and when expressed, can help make change for all and inspire others to do the same. “Radical joy” is an anthem to those who thrive against all odds.
Discover everything Pride at unlocked.microsoft.com/pride.
Stories of joy
This year’s campaign is an ode to the strength and power of the LGBTQIA+ communities. The LGBTQIA+ community is the heart of this movement, and employees are the heart of Microsoft. Eight Microsoft employees shared their radical joy stories, reminding us of the why behind Pride and uniting us in furthering its mission.
Microsoft employees share what Pride and “Radical joy” means to them.
Open source and spreading joy
“Radical joy” is grounded in inclusion and acceptance, values that are important for us at Microsoft. One of the many ways we are celebrating them at Pride is by highlighting the interconnected and intersectional nature of LGBTQIA+ communities. Our designs unite 74 flags representing different LGBTQIA+ identities through vibrant abstract shapes that nod to the joy and power that radiates from and through the community year-round. This year’s graphic expands representation to 25 new communities and is localized for use in 33 languages.
For the third year in a row, Microsoft invites everyone to spread LGBTQIA+ acceptance and inclusion by sharing stories, open sourcing the entire Pride campaign design to remix and share, as we have found time and time again, participation is key to the community and its allies. For the first time, this year, we invite you to leverage AI to create even more Pride by sharing your own stories with fast and easy AI-powered tools like Microsoft Designer and Clipchamp to make your own Pride stickers, social posts and more. In addition, we are making all Pride assets available on Figma and GitHub, where anyone can download and customize the campaign assets to spread joy this Pride. Microsoft and its employees invite everyone to visit Microsoft.com/pride to learn more and share on social by using #MicrosoftPride and #Pride. We look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Everyone can use our Pride graphics to create their own celebrations and designs.
Our pride collection
Pride lights up across many Microsoft products – including Teams, Edge, Clipchamp, Microsoft 365, Designer and Windows. We are spreading joy across our products and platforms and have been since 2018. Discover how you can celebrate Pride and the power of LGBTQIA+ communities:
Microsoft Unlocked – Unlock all things Pride at Microsoft. Open source – Microsoft Pride designs from this year and past years are available on GitHub and Figma for you to download, remix and customize. Microsoft Designer – Create and customize this year’s radical joy design for your own Pride graphics. Microsoft Designer templates – Discover and customize even more Pride-themed templates. Microsoft Designer sticker creator – Prompt AI to create custom stickers that reflect your joy and use them on your devices! GIPHY – Radical joy should be shared, and that is why we brought this year’s graphics to GIPHY, so you can share joyful GIFs across devices! Microsoft Teams – Download custom Teams backgrounds to spread joy during your video calls. Microsoft Edge themes – Light up your Edge experience with the new Pride theme. Windows wallpapers – Update your desktop with radical joy by downloading one of our custom wallpapers. Microsoft 365 apps theming – Turn on your Pride in select Microsoft 365 apps* and celebrate with a special theme inspired by the flags of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Clipchamp – Unleash your creativity on Clipchamp with Pride assets built straight into the product. Xbox – Learn about Xbox’s partnership with The Trevor Project, discover custom Pride art, purchase merch and more on Xbox Wire. Microsoft Store – Explore collections of curated games from LGBTQIA+ and transgender and non-binary Inclusion is Innovation – Explore LGBTQIA+ employee stories year-round. Our commitment

 
We are continuing our longstanding efforts to financially contribute to nonprofits doing on-the-ground work to support LGBTQIA+ communities. This year, we are donating $200,000 to charities across the globe: The Trevor Project, Transconvida, ACCEPT ASOCIATIA and Transgender Law Center. Together with our employees, Microsoft has donated over $16 million to organizations that support LGBTQIA+ communities in the last 30 years, and in the last year alone, we donated over $1.3 million.
Our efforts to support and advocate for LGBTQIA+ people do not start or end at Pride. By supporting our employees through global advocacy, charitable giving and better workplace practices, we hope to make a difference for LGBTQIA+ communities and beyond, as our drive for positive global impact continues and celebrates our employees and what brings them, and their communities’ joy.
At Microsoft, we continue to leverage our platform year-round to support and learn from LGBTQIA+ communities and address issues that impact the lived experience, safety, and fundamental rights of employees and their communities around the world.
We know that there is still work to be done, as a brand and as a global society. While we celebrate our successes, we remain committed to making continued progress.
Standing up for LGBTQIA+ equity since 1989
Microsoft introduced sexual orientation into our non-discrimination policies in 1989 – and we have been driving toward LGBTQIA+ inclusion ever since. In 1993, we began offering employee benefits for same-sex domestic partnerships, making us one of the first companies in the world to do so. We stood as a public supporter for marriage equality even before it became legal in the United States – and we continue to advocate for every type of family. Microsoft has attained a 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index for 18 years. Since its founding in 1993, GLEAM (Global LGBTQIA+ Employees & Allies at Microsoft) has honored Pride by lifting up LGBTQIA+ voices and used the reach of our products to share the messages of inclusion and support.
We invite everyone to join us in the call for making more Pride. Share your thoughts with us on social by using #MicrosoftPride and #Pride.
* “Show your Pride” theme is available in the following apps – iOS: Outlook, OneNote, Office, Word, Excel and PowerPoint; in Android: Outlook; in Mac OS: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote. In Outlook, you can find the Pride themes in Settings > Appearance In all other apps, you can find Pride theme in Settings.
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In the span of just one year, we’ve witnessed a remarkable acceleration in AI adoption, opening a new frontier of innovation, discovery and solutions. This surge in AI is not just about technological advancement; it’s about harnessing the potential to promote innovation, tackle some of societies’ largest challenges and change lives for the better. Microsoft’s role and responsibility as a leader in AI is reflected in the company’s commitment to ensure broad access to our technology that empowers organizations and individuals to serve the public good.
We build and operate a global network of advanced datacenters that enable this technology, and we recognize the crucial role that communities play in this ecosystem. We rely on a vast network of local suppliers, officials, stakeholders and residents to plan, design, construct and operate each of our facilities. To those communities, we owe a commitment to be responsible neighbors and contribute positively to local economies and ecosystems while advancing digital transformation. We recognize the importance of supporting communities, and our datacenters should be a resource that addresses local needs and priorities.
With that, I’m delighted to announce our Datacenter Community Pledge that builds upon the deep partnerships we have formed with communities around the world. This is our pledge that Microsoft’s datacenters will be not only the backbone of modern technology but also a force for good in the communities they serve.
The Datacenter Community Pledge focuses on three core areas:
Contributing to a sustainable future
We will design and operate our datacenters to support society’s climate goals and become carbon negative, water positive and zero waste before 2030.
Our sustainability work starts with taking accountability for our operational footprint. We remain unwavering in our commitment to achieve carbon negativity by 2030, and our datacenters play a pivotal role in this comprehensive decarbonization strategy.
By 2025, we will procure 100% renewable energy on a global scale, both significantly expanding and decarbonizing local electricity grids.
Our datacenter designs are more water efficient than traditional enterprise datacenters, and our plan by 2030 is to replenish more water than we consume locally.
Another critical aspect of our work is achieving zero waste. In 2020, we introduced the first of its kind Microsoft Circular Center in Amsterdam designed to reuse and repurpose servers and hardware in our datacenters. Since then, we’ve built more than 10 Circular Centers in key locations that help us divert waste from landfills, and our plan by 2030 is to achieve zero waste through a combination of waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting.
This pledge minimizes our dependency on local resources and ensures that our operations contribute positively to the community.
Read more about this work:
Building world-class sustainable datacenters and investing in solar power in Arizona Opening doors to a sustainable future with Microsoft’s Circular Center in Singapore Progress on our commitment to sustainable backup power in datacenters by 2030 Advancing community prosperity and well-being
We will deliver significant local, economic, social and environmental benefits to the communities where we operate.
Local people know their community better than anyone else, and that is why we partner with local stakeholders to ensure our datacenters provide support in the form of educational programs, grants and other initiatives aligned to local needs and priorities.
We partner with local governments, businesses, schools and nonprofits to create well-paid jobs and apprenticeship opportunities, and we provide essential digital skills training and STEM education for adults and children. Our goal is to empower community members with future-ready skills necessary for the digital age, ensuring they are prepared for the opportunities of tomorrow.
We invest in initiatives to enhance local sustainability. We restore sensitive watershed corridors and invest in projects to conserve trees, enhance native flora and protect ecological habitats, providing benefits to the surrounding ecosystems and honoring the natural beauty of the area.
Our datacenters generate public infrastructure improvements and tax revenue that serve as a catalyst for enhancing the quality of life in these areas. That translates into new and improved social services, such as parks where families can come together, better-equipped schools that empower children’s education and well-maintained roads and digital infrastructure that connect us all.
Read more about this work:
How a small city in Iowa became an epicenter for advancing AI Microsoft opens Asia’s first Datacenter Academy in Singapore with ITE Microsoft to establish its first datacenter region in Taiwan as a part of its “Reimagine Taiwan” initiative Operating responsibly as a good neighbor
We will partner closely with communities and operate in a way that respects the local environment.
In all we do, we strive to be a responsible neighbor. We listen, learn, build relationships and follow through on our commitments — guided by what is important locally. We will design our datacenters with the environment and communities in mind. From sustainable development practices and building materials to noise and light reduction measures, we will work with, and support, the environment and the communities where we are based.
We will collaborate with neighbors and communities throughout our development and operations, while partnering with nonprofits and suppliers who share our commitment to expand opportunities for all.
Read more about this work:
Microsoft and Fortum join forces – Microsoft is building a data center area in Finland that will produce emission-free district heat for Fortum’s customers in the Helsinki metropolitan area Blending datacenters into Wieringermeer nature with biomimicry Partnering with the City of Quincy to open Washington’s first industrial water reuse center We approach this work to create positive change, uplift the communities where we operate and to make a significant contribution to the digital transformation. Through partnerships, we are crafting a future both at the forefront of technology and also deeply rooted in social responsibility and environmental sustainability.
Our investments serve not only the countries in which we operate but embody our pledge to be a good neighbor. When we build a datacenter in your community, we are here for all of us.
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