For the past several years, developers from around the world have gathered here in Seattle, the original “Cloud City,” to meet, exchange ideas, hone or learn skills, build community. This year, we won’t be meeting in person, but the spirit of the event will continue as we move online – and the response we’ve received from our community of developers looking to learn, connect and code at Microsoft Build 2020 has been overwhelming, and quite frankly, humbling. This will likely be our biggest event ever … not just for Build, but for all the events that Microsoft holds. Wow.

The title of our show is a fitting mantra to this unprecedented era we find ourselves in: Build.

Socrates (not the Greek philosopher; the gas station attendant) once said: “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” We believe the developer community is the next wave to join the ranks of those who will build and re-build organizations, industries, communities.

This week, we celebrate the critical role of developers and their tireless efforts to rally during this time of crisis. We’ve unveiled a range of new tools and services to meet their needs to provide immediate impact and value, empowering innovations that help organizations and individuals achieve more.

As work environments evolve, you’ll see how we’re creating solutions to help companies build, rebuild and thrive, including new tools that enable developers to design and deliver artificial intelligence (AI) applications in an ethical and responsible way, as well as help them build connected productivity experiences.

You’ll see an emphasis on impact and value, delivering solutions within Azure, M365 and Windows – from tools to help developers be more collaborative and productive at work, to services that give customers the flexibility to deploy AI capabilities in any environment – and with no prior coding experience.

And finally, you’ll see a nod to technical excellence, and how we’re looking to help developers achieve more in the future through AI and other technology advancements.

Key news highlights:

• We’re introducing Azure Synapse Link, bringing operational database services and analytics together in real-time. Launched initially in Azure Cosmos DB, but coming soon to all operational systems, Azure Synapse Link helps customers lower costs and reduce time to gain valuable insights without managing data movement.
• Platform enhancements to Microsoft Teams include a streamlined experience for developers to build and publish Teams apps from Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code; the ability for IT admins to evaluate and deploy line-of-business and ISV applications for their users in Teams; and new ways for people to discover and engage with apps in Teams.
• We are announcing updates to Fluid Framework, including making it open source to developers, and introducing the first way for end users to experience Fluid with the upcoming availability of Fluid components and Fluid workspaces in Office.com and Outlook for the Web.
• We’re delivering new Responsible ML tools in Azure Machine Learning and our OSS toolkits to help customers deploy AI models more responsibly by improving model interpretability, reducing unfairness while ensuring data privacy and confidentiality.
• To help unify app development across 1 billion Windows 10 devices we’re introducing Project Reunion: our vision for evolving the Windows developer platform to make it easier to integrate across Win32 and UWP APIs and build great apps that work across all the Windows 10 versions and devices people use.
• We’re further investing in bringing comprehensive low-code Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology into Power Automate with the acquisition of Softomotive, a leading provider of low-code, easy-to-use RPA development environments. Softomotive’s technology will complement UI flows to streamline how our customers get work done.
• We’re announcing one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers built in Azure. Developed in collaboration with and exclusively for OpenAI, this supercomputer is purpose-built to train massive distributed AI models, giving it all the benefits of a dedicated appliance paired with the benefits of Azure’s robust modern cloud infrastructure.
• We’re highlighting pitches from six finalist teams in this year’s Imagine Cup, and unveiling the 2020 champion as part of Microsoft’s commitment to helping students develop big, bold ideas by providing tools, programs and technology to learn the skills they’ll need to create. Top ideas include solutions that help improve treatment of youth living with mental illness; tools that help battle misinformation in the media; and technology that better enable physicians to detect early onset Parkinson’s disease and track patient progress throughout treatment plans.
• And lastly, we’re introducing Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, our first industry-specific cloud offering, which brings together capabilities for customers and partners to enrich patient engagement, connect caregiving teams, and improve collaboration, decision-making and operational efficiencies. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare will support capabilities such as the new Bookings app in Teams, now generally available to customers across industries to help schedule, manage and conduct business-to-consumer virtual appointments. Teams supports HIPAA compliance and is HITRUST-certified.

Thanks for joining us this year as we try something – and build something – new together.

Be sure to check out all the highlights on our Microsoft Build site – including key segments from Microsoft executives – and other session content available virtually.