Microsoft and Nvidia are teaming up to build a cloud-based supercomputer with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

Nvidia chips are staples in AI development, with GPUs offering a number of performance benefits over traditional CPUs. Microsoft and Nvidia are collaborating to combine Nvidia’s GPUs with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

The companies say the result of the collaboration will be one of the most powerful cloud-based AI supercomputers in the world. In addition, as part of the collaboration, Nvidia will use Azure virtual machine instances to further AI development.

“AI technology advances as well as industry adoption are accelerating. The breakthrough of foundation models has triggered a tidal wave of research, fostered new startups and enabled new enterprise applications,” said Manuvir Das, vice president of enterprise computing at NVIDIA. “Our collaboration with Microsoft will provide researchers and companies with state-of-the-art AI infrastructure and software to capitalize on the transformative power of AI.”

“AI is fueling the next wave of automation across enterprises and industrial computing, enabling organizations to do more with less as they navigate economic uncertainties,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the Cloud + AI Group at Microsoft. “Our collaboration with NVIDIA unlocks the world’s most scalable supercomputer platform, which delivers state-of-the-art AI capabilities for every enterprise on Microsoft Azure.”