Microsoft to Provide Reseachers With Cloud Computing to Tackle Ebola

The tech giant Microsoft is known for funding different programs in the field of science. On Tuesday Microsoft will make an announcement of a program to give free cloud access to researches working on a vaccine for Ebola the deadly disease a cause for thousands of death in Africa.

There is also news that Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg are also donating $25 million to the CDC foundation to fight Ebola.

On Tuesday morning the Azure computer power will be made available to the research community stated Satya Nadella the CEO of Microsoft in a presentation in San Francisco.

Microsoft's cloud computing platform Azure is a group of data centres that allow users to gain access to large amounts of information and computing power remotely over the internet.

Nadella also stated that Microsoft researchers have built tools that are able to do vaccine discovery and wanted to make this available to the research community.

Microsoft's research unit is encouraging cloud computing proposals for projects that are working to develop a better understanding of the spread and cure of the Ebola virus. Even proposals that are affiliated to an academic institution and are qualifying proposals will be given access to Microsoft Azure according to the Microsoft website.

According to the Chicago Tribune, this access to the vast data centres could be very helpful to researchers looking to store and analyze large sets of data that would be difficult using local computers and networks.

Bill Gates the co-founder of Microsoft in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month stated that he is stepping up the Ebola efforts. He has been hugely involved with charitable health care initiatives.

The new malaria vaccine was actively created by researchers of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and he has been speaking to the vaccine experts on what can be done to create treatments for Ebola.

This could be the reason that Microsoft has given researchers access to Microsoft's massive cloud available in 19 countries.