Transforming scientific discovery with Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA

Discover how Azure’s cloud solutions and NVIDIA’s GPUs are accelerating scientific breakthroughs—witness the transformation in research and innovation.

Many organisations are harnessing AI as a driving force for change. They’re taking bold steps, challenging existing norms, and reshaping entire industries. In the inaugural season of the Catalyst series, we explore three startups embracing Microsoft Azure’s infrastructure and NVIDIA’s specialised models and cool computing technology to propel advancements in science, health, and technology. From digital representations to drug discovery, learn about the pioneering companies that are driving forward social and scientific progress through innovative approaches that enhance human creativity and expertise.

Pangaea Data: Bridging Care Gaps with AI

Diagnosing and treating health issues, whether they are common or rare, can pose a challenge for both doctors and patients. This often happens because patient records can be extensive, making it tough for clinicians to thoroughly cover them. As a result, crucial information might remain hidden, leading to missed opportunities for patient care. Pangaea Data aims to bridge these care gaps by using AI aligned with clinical guidelines, mimicking how doctors typically review electronic health records. This approach streamlines the process of identifying untreated or under-treated patients right at the point of care, without interrupting clinicians’ existing routines.

For instance, the UK’s NHS employed Pangaea’s platform to uncover six times more untreated and under-treated patients suffering from the hard-to-diagnose cancer cachexia, potentially reducing treatment costs by half. In a similar vein, a US health system utilised Pangaea’s technology to unearth an extra $9 million in annual revenue by closing care gaps related to just one condition.

Running on Microsoft Azure’s secure and globally compliant cloud framework, Pangaea’s platform is seamlessly integrated with NVIDIA’s comprehensive AI solutions. By leveraging high-performance GPU-accelerated computing alongside optimised software tools, the platform provides timely, reliable insights that clinicians and healthcare providers can trust. This ensures fair patient care and improves outcomes sustainably and at scale.

For information to be useful, it must be presented to doctors in a compliant manner. Azure does a remarkable job here, having established compliance across various countries and regions, instilling trust as a reputable entity, beyond mere technology.

– Vibhor Gupta, PhD, Founder and CEO of Pangaea Data

Basecamp Research: Uniting Biotechnology with Biodiversity

Basecamp Research believes that nature holds the secrets to scientific breakthroughs. They have assembled one of the largest biological databases in the world to aid life science researchers and businesses focused on drug discovery, product development, and biological studies. Their extensive database boasts over 10 billion novel proteins, including essential tools like gene editing proteins sourced from diverse global environments. This dataset serves as a training ground for AI models, such as Evolutionary Scale Modeling (ESM), aimed at pinpointing new targets, crafting novel proteins, and anticipating metabolic pathways to accelerate the development of innovative medicines and biological products.

Thanks to AI, Basecamp Research has set new standards in control, uniqueness, and efficiency. To achieve a tenfold increase in their database’s growth rate, they needed scalable computing resources, cutting-edge models, and vast data. By leveraging Microsoft Azure’s infrastructure for their models and using NVIDIA’s BioNeMo framework for training, they drastically improved their operational speed and scalability.

We’ve heavily relied on Azure, particularly Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) and the container registry, to orchestrate and massively scale our annotation processes. NVIDIA steps in next, enabling us to effectively utilise these datasets for model training.

– Glen Gowers, Co-Founder of Basecamp Research

Global Objects: Digitising Physical Artifacts Across Sectors

Microsoft regards AI digital twins as a foundational technology with myriad applications, linking the physical and digital realms. These digital twins create virtual representations of physical items and systems—whether that’s artwork in a gallery, a prop in a film, or a simulation streamlining manufacturing processes. Global Objects explained how they employ advanced AI and 3D scanning technologies to produce lifelike digital twins of props and items in various contexts. Their goal is to tackle the challenge of generating high-quality photorealistic content, training AI to map physical environments with remarkable precision.

By merging artistic talent with state-of-the-art technology, they’ve successfully created authentic digital versions of unique objects in the cloud. This process involved collecting varied data about each object to facilitate the generation of new content that replicates precise specifications. Such digitisation isn’t only useful for preserving art or producing films; it also offers new opportunities for product and service innovation in gaming, robotics, and healthcare.

The key factor here is processing. We need the best systems, servers, and GPUs available to handle the large file sizes and speed requirements. Our partnership with Microsoft and NVIDIA is pivotal, ensuring we can deliver services with speed, efficiency, and high fidelity.

– Jesse Redniss, Chief Strategy Officer of Global Objects

Become a Catalyst for Change with Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA

Microsoft and NVIDIA provide top-tier development tools, frameworks, and pre-trained models that cater to developers, researchers, and leaders across various industries. By integrating Azure’s reliable cloud foundation with NVIDIA’s cutting-edge computing capabilities, businesses can deploy AI more swiftly, innovate intelligently, and stay ahead of their competitors. The examples shared today demonstrate the potential to foster a more inclusive and intelligent future, propelling progress in diverse sectors. Watch The Catalyst Series.

¹ McKinsey, The state of AI: How organisations are rewiring to capture value, March 12, 2025.

² Crunchbase, The state of startups in mid-2025 in 8 charts: Global funding and M&A surge as AI fervour continues, July 22, 2025.