Azure high-performance computing
Unlock your innovation with the leading HPC cloud solution
Azure high-performance computing (HPC) is a complete set of computing, networking and storage resources integrated with workload orchestration services for HPC applications. With purpose-built HPC infrastructure, solutions and optimised application services, Azure offers competitive price/performance compared to on-premises options with additional high-performance computing benefits. In addition, Azure includes next-generation machine learning tools to drive smarter simulations and empower intelligent decision making.
Optimised performance with cost control
Maximise the full range of CPU, GPU, FPGA and fast interconnect capabilities to reduce job completion times from days to minutes
End-to-end workflow agility
Build and manage HPC clusters for your own exclusive use, enabling end-to-end application life cycle management in the cloud
Production-class platform
With robust HPC reliability, data security and global regulatory compliance, Azure is the cloud that just works
Incorporating intelligence
Build and train new AI models faster with automated machine learning, auto-scaling cloud compute and built-in DevOps
Duke University ventilator splitting project
Ventilators have become a scarce resource during the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Randles and her team at Duke University rushed to find a safe and easy way to effectively split a single ventilator between two patients. They partnered with Microsoft AI for Health to run more than 800,000 computer hours in just 36 hours to build a life-saving solution.
Explore Azure HPC solutions by application and industry
Empower developers, engineers, scientists and researchers to make new breakthroughs in their fields with Azure HPC.
Automotive
Simulate all aspects of vehicle engineering cost-effectively and at scale with highly secure infrastructure.
Financial services
Confidently meet regulatory requirements with an elastic and intelligent infrastructure for risk modelling. Extend your capacity as needed and only pay for what you use.
Energy
Optimise all stages of upstream oil and gas industry exploration, appraisal, completion and production.
Health and life sciences
Accelerate insights in genomics, precision medicine and clinical trials with near-infinite high-performance bioinformatics infrastructure.
Silicon
Scalable, secure, on-demand and high-performance infrastructure with compute, storage and networking optimised for electronic design automation (EDA) workloads.
Manufacturing
Rapidly iterate on product design to reduce time to market and improve product quality with scalable and highly secure on-demand HPC infrastructure.
Applications
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Machine learning
Get powerful remote workstations, run clusters with near-infinite scale and gain better insights with advanced analytics, machine learning and AI workloads running on Azure.
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Visualisation
Run any graphic-intensive workload in the cloud and deliver extraordinary experiences to any device, anywhere and at any time, with Azure’s more than 50 global data centre regions.
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Rendering
Render with confidence on a scalable, MPAA-certified, non-competing platform that’s trusted by 95 per cent of the Fortune 500.
HPC platform services
Get vast compute resources with a cloud platform built for global scale and outfitted with services specifically geared towards HPC workloads.
Network
Establish private, secure tunnels for hybrid cloud connectivity using Azure ExpressRoute. Take advantage of Linux remote direct memory access (RDMA) with InfiniBand for message passing interface (MPI) workloads within your data centre.
Compute
Find the right high-performance computing resources at nearly unlimited scale on Azure. Use H-series virtual machines for memory-bound applications, N-series virtual machines for graphic-intensive and CUDA/OpenCL-based applications or Cray for a fully dedicated and customised supercomputer delivered as a managed service.
Storage
Burst your HPC applications into Azure using data stored in on-premises NAS devices with HPC Cache. Access large amounts of I/O with a sub-millisecond latency with Azure NetApp Files, delivered as an Azure service natively within an Azure data centre. For a high-throughput storage solution, use Cray ClusterStor, a Lustre-based, bare-metal HPC storage solution that’s fully integrated into Azure.
Application Services
Create and manage applications and schedule jobs with Azure Batch. Dynamically provision Azure HPC clusters with Azure CycleCloud.
Intelligent Services
Build the next generation of applications with predictive analysis using Data Lake Analytics. Gain insights that lead to better decisions by building and running machine learning models on top of your HPC data.
Azure HPC Overview
Fully managed supercomputing service on Azure
Get a dedicated, fully managed, single-tenant Cray XC- or CS-series supercomputer. Take advantage of Cray ClusterStor high-performance storage in Azure or with Azure H-series virtual machines. Features include:
- Dedicated, customised, fully managed supercomputers.
- Single tenancy on bare metal for complete control and privacy over your computing environment.
- No data movement – your data stays on the same Azure network as your RDMA, GPU or FPGA virtual machines.
- Transformative services such as AI, deep learning and advanced analytics.