Microsoft and Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) have collaborated on a joint program that will allow university researchers free access to advanced cloud computing resources.
Microsoft said that the participating researchers are part of ‘New IT Infrastructure for the Information-Explosion Era’ project that NII supports known as the Info-Plosion Project.
The joint program will allow researchers to find new ways to explore potential of the cloud and to invent scalable, secure information systems that also enhance user’s online experience.
Under the collaboration, Microsoft will donate Windows Azure cloud resources to the Info-Plosion Project through its global cloud research engagement project.
Microsoft researchers and developers will work with grant recipients to equip NII with a set of common tools, applications and data collections that can be shared with academic community, and provide its expertise in research, science and cloud computing.
Microsoft technology strategy and policy corporate vice president Dan Reed said, cloud computing can transform how research is conducted, accelerating scientific exploration, discovery and results, and will also help researchers explore multidisciplinary data sets on a large scale.
