Microsoft is Adding Elon Musk’s AI to its Cloud

Microsoft Corp. is adding AI models from Elon Musk’s xAI, including Grok 3, to its Azure AI marketplace, expanding its cloud offerings. The move comes as major cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google compete to host cutting-edge AI tools.

Azure users now have access to over 1,900 AI model variants, including those from OpenAI, Meta, and DeepSeek. While Musk’s models broaden the selection, models from Google and Anthropic are still missing.

Microsoft Embraces AI Standards and Agent Management Tools at Build Conference

At Build, Microsoft showcased new tools for managing AI agents that act on users’ behalf. It announced that Windows and other products will support Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard for AI system interactions. Microsoft and GitHub are now part of MCP’s steering committee.

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott emphasized the importance of AI agents being able to “talk to everything in the world” for maximum usefulness.

Microsoft Bets Big on AI to Drive Productivity and Justify Infrastructure Investments

Microsoft has emerged as a leading AI player, fueled by its multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI. By integrating AI into its tools, the company is banking on productivity gains to offset its massive infrastructure costs.

At its Build conference, Microsoft launched tools to help developers and businesses use generative AI more effectively, including a model leaderboard, an auto-recommendation tool, and custom training solutions.

Grok 3 and Grok 3 Mini, developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, will be available through Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry. The models also power a chatbot on Musk’s social platform, X, which recently drew controversy for promoting a conspiracy theory. xAI attributed the issue to an “unauthorized modification” and pledged greater transparency.

As of January, Microsoft projected its AI ecosystem—spanning infrastructure and applications—was on track to generate over $13 billion in annual revenue.

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