Microsoft Launches AI Services Firm With $2.5B

Microsoft has launched the Microsoft Frontier Company, a new professional services business backed by $2.5 billion and staffed by 6,000 experts. Led by executive Rodrigo Kede Lima, the unit will deploy engineers directly to enterprise clients to build and manage custom AI applications using Microsoft's Azure and Foundry platforms. The venture will partner with firms like Accenture, Capgemini, and EY to serve global customers. It enters a competitive field as AWS, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI all expand their own forward-deployed engineering operations, with OpenAI securing $4 billion and Anthropic raising $1.5 billion for similar efforts.