Microsoft empowers U.S. Federal agencies with OpenAI’s Azure Cloud

Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, has announced the integration of support for OpenAI’s advanced language models, including GPT-4 and GPT-3, into Azure Government, its cloud service for U.S. federal agencies.

The popularity of large language models (LLMs) has surged since the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in which Microsoft has a stake. Businesses of various types and sizes are competing to develop functionalities utilizing these models.

Microsoft’s inclusion of GPT technology in Azure Government, its cloud platform designed for U.S. government agencies, is a notable milestone. This move represents the first instance of a prominent company making chatbot technology accessible to governments.

The company typically provides access to Azure OpenAI Services for Azure commercial cloud users, which already boasts 4,500 customers as of May.

In addition, Microsoft has stated that government customers will have the ability to customize the language models for specific purposes, such as generating content, translating language to code, and summarizing information.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s product suite that includes Word and Excel was down for more than 15,000 users on Monday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Microsoft services have faced at least three outages since the beginning of the year.

Microsoft Outlook which is used by millions of such companies to ensure efficient functioning has been reported of outage issues according .to Downdetector.

“Outlook on the Web not working,” one user wrote. When trying to access the email site, an error message appears. “Service Unavailable,” it says, followed by: “HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.” “We’re investigating an issue with accessing Outlook on the web. Further details can be found under EX571516 in the admin center,” the company said.

Updated: 08 Jun 2023, 12:13 PM IST