Why Choose Azure for Research?
Microsoft Azure is designed in several ways that makes it well-suited for academic research environments. Here are the primary benefits and philosophy of Azure:
Azure's intuitive interfaces include no-code options for researchers without programming backgrounds. The platform offers customisable displays supporting various needs, including colour-blind users and screen reader compatibility.
This ensures all researchers can leverage AI regardless of technical expertise.
The platform's compatibility with popular open-source frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Python and R maintains transparency in your methods whilst benefiting from cloud computing power.
Azure integrates with existing university tools, including Office 365 and Teams, streamlining workflows and reducing friction when sharing results or collaborating with colleagues.
Microsoft's data centres operate with renewable energy commitments that reduce your research's carbon footprint.
The cloud-based approach eliminates the environmental impact of manufacturing and eventually disposing of dedicated hardware.
Azure provides built-in tools for responsible AI, including fairness monitoring to identify potential biases, transparency features for explainable AI, and robust privacy protections for sensitive research data.
The ethics of AI is really important, both understanding the biases that can be inherent in the training data and the environmental sustainability of training. We'll have a full module on the ethics in a later section.