Microsoft is supercharging the development of artificial intelligence with enhancements to Fabric, Azure AI Studio, and updates to its databases.

Microsoft Corp. is raising its game for artificial intelligence developers with a host of updates to its Azure cloud computing platform.

During its Ignite 2023 conference, Microsoft highlighted that the key to making artificial intelligence (AI) successful is having access to the right data. They introduced Microsoft Fabric as part of the Intelligent Data Platform, a tool that combines different databases, analytics, and governance services. This helps companies seamlessly connect their crucial data with their AI processes. Additionally, Microsoft unveiled Azure AI Studio, which comes with improved AI search features and content safety measures.

According to Jessica Hawk, Azure’s corporate vice president of data, AI, digital applications, and marketing, every AI application has its foundation in data. Therefore, a company needs a complete data estate to support artificial intelligence innovation; however, this is not easy to develop if there are fragmented data systems.

The company claims that, Microsoft Fabric, which was announced in May at Build 2023, is a fabric comprising the essential data and analytics software for developing leading-edge AI apps and systems together. In other words, the new software as a service solution combines different platforms, such as Data Factory, Synapse and Power BI, in the form of one product that replaces these disparate systems with an easy to install, use and administer, as well as cost-efficient alternative aimed at However, Microsoft already provides a full end-to-end AI development platform named Azure OpenAI, with which one can generate different types of sophisticated next generation AI applications. This procedure, however, must be backed by an uninterrupted stream of clean datum coupled with assimilated knowledge.

The company explained that with the provision of Fabric; the developer will have a full-fledged data platform instead of the confusing maze of the unrelated equipment. All necessary abilities to derive meaning from data and share it with AI systems are present in this platform; moreover, it’ll add its own copilot tool in preview that will allow programmers communicating via natural language commanding.Microsoft Fabric is like the boss of an open data lake platform called OneLake. This platform keeps everything in one place, so there’s no need to mess around with moving or copying data. With OneLake, Fabric makes sure that data is properly managed and has a pricing system that grows as you use it more. Plus, it’s open, meaning you’re not stuck with one company’s way of doing things. Fabric also plays nice with Microsoft 365 apps like Excel, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Teams. It’s all about making things work together smoothly.

Fabric Microsoft also rolled out a public preview of Azure AI Studio to aid AI developers with every tool required in dealing with generative AI models. This facilitates the use of the latest large language models and also integrates data to enable retrieval augmented generation (RAG), which refers to AI systems that make use of company’s private datasets in intelligent search, full-cycle model management and content safety tools. However, Prompt Flow remains the primary function of Azure AI Studio, which helps in managing prompt orchestration and LLMOps. Azure Machine Learning service has also introduced a new feature called Prompt Flow that makes it possible to prototype, experiment, and iterate, as well as deploy AI applications.

Another tool which is offered under Microsoft Azure AI Studio includes Azure AI Search that was previously called Cognitive Search. This allows for quicker and more accurate data retrieving in order to enhance the quality as well as response times of AI. This approach known as retrieval augmented generation lets LLMs to integrate information from various external sources and consequently develop better answers.

RAG has a critical significance in some types of cases where an agent’s customer service demands valid responses drawn from trustworthy information. Powered by vector search an information retrieval method across diverse data forms like images, audio, text and videos. Therefore, vector search is one of the crucial functions for obtaining fuller information on AI.#

Semantic ranker in Azure AI search enables one to utilize the same search re-ranking technologies that underlie Microsoft Bings searches to rank responses based on relevance.

Azure AI Content Safety gives developers tools to check how well their models are doing, making sure they’re accurate and free from biases or other security risks. It comes with cool features like the Responsible AI Dashboard and model monitoring. Microsoft also promises to have the back of Azure customers, protecting them from legal troubles related to copyright infringement. This commitment, called the Customer Copyright Commitment, applies to everyone using the Azure OpenAI Service. It’s basically Microsoft saying, “We’ve got your back if anything goes wrong, and we’re confident in our ability to keep your AI development safe.”

Microsoft has some really big news for AI developers, and there’s even more coming their way. Picture this: GPT-4 Turbo with Vision is on the horizon for Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Studio. It’s like the superhero of language models, brought to you by Microsoft’s partner OpenAI LP. This powerhouse gives developers the keys to unlock multi-modal capabilities in their AI applications. Translation: AI that can not only understand language but also see and make sense of things, whether it’s in the real world, videos, or elsewhere.

But wait, there’s more! The Azure Cosmos DB database service is levelling up, aiming to be the go-to choice for AI developers. Now, it’s all about dynamic scaling – the ability to flexibly adjust database sizes based on demand. This ensures developers are using just the right amount of cloud resources, optimizing their costs while rocking the AI world.

Microsoft have also added more features to this version like; availability of Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCrore and vector search in Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCrore. This gives developers the capability of creating smartly functioning applications which utilizes data that is saved in Azure Cosmos DB using complete support for MongoDB. This will translate into more native Azure integration, which will also lead to the total cost of ownership reduction for MongoDB developers with the same familiar database service experience.

It would allow searching of the unstructured data in Azure Cosmos DB using vector search technique and storing these data as embeddings. This helps in avoiding the hassle of data transmission from the platform to a dedicated platform having a vector search functionality.

Besides, Microsoft is improving Azure Kubernetes Service, a controlled form of open source Kubernetes program that manages software containers for the parts of AI apps.

The company said that AKS now supports specialized machine learning workloads such as LLMs with virtually no overhead to provision them ready for operations. The updated AI toolchain operator for LLMs in AKS scales across CPU and GPU cluster node.

It does this by choosing the best infrastructure for each model out of the options that exist in the market. Thus, developers can allocate inferencing costs among a few low-GPU count virtual machines.… This helps lower costs and increase coverage regions for LLM workload. Moreover, elimination of wait times associated with higher GPU count VMs is included. The company further added that customers will as well be able to use preset models which are hosted on AKS thus shorten the setup time of the inference service.

Guess what’s new in AKS? They’ve introduced the Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager, and it’s like the superhero for managing workload distribution across Kubernetes clusters. This means it helps make sure everything is running smoothly and keeps your platform and applications up to date. Developers can breathe easy knowing they’ve got the latest and most secure software running the show.

And that’s not all! Microsoft just dropped the latest version of its .NET computing framework, and it’s called .NET 8. This update is a game-changer for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It promises a big leap in performance and productivity for ASP.NET and .NET developers, setting the stage for a whole new era of super-smart cloud-native applications that play nice with Azure.

Hold on, there’s more goodness. .NET 8 comes with fancy features like support for Azure Functions, Azure App Service, AKS, and Azure Container Apps. They’ve jazzed up Visual Studio, their integrated development environment, and made friends with GitHub and Microsoft DevBox. It’s like Microsoft is rolling out the red carpet for developers!

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