What you need to know
- Microsoft outlines its Surface and Azure teams leverage Azure’s high-performance computing to improve the product design process for Surface devices.
- The company indicates that the technology has helped save time and resources during the design process.
- Microsoft wants to leverage machine learning and AI in product manufacturing and development of future Surface PCs.
Microsoft is seemingly placing all its bets on generative AI. As you might have noticed, the tech giant has ramped up its efforts in the category and virtually integrated the technology across most of its products and services.
Now, the company shared a detailed blog post highlighting how its Microsoft Surface and Azure team used Azure’s high-performance computing technology to revolutionize the product design process of manufacturing Surface products while simultaneously saving time and cost.
According to Microsoft’s Principal Engineer and structural designer, Prasad Raghavendra, the company integrated Abaqus, “a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software,” into Azure HPC in 2016. Abaqus helped the company solve many issues and fully transition “product-level structural simulations for Surface Pro 4 and the original Surface laptop to Azure HPC from on-premises servers.”
Raghavendra indicates the availability of Azure HPC for structural simulations using Abaqus, which has completely revolutionized the product design process for Surface devices. It translated design concepts created in digital computer-aided design (CAD) systems into the FEA model.
This made it easier for analysts to use FEA models to run numerous tests in different reliability conditions in a virtual environment rather than physically going through the entire process step-by-step. Consequently, the team ran hundreds of simulations to determine the feasibility of proposed design ideas and solutions. This ability made narrowing down potential design ideas easier, which were turned into prototypes for further scrutiny.
Reliability and customer satisfaction remain a top priority for the Microsoft Surface team. To scale greater heights, Microsoft intends to continue using digital prototypes (FEA model) for simulation runs on Azure HPC clusters. Microsoft seeks to leverage machine learning and AI in product manufacturing and developing future Surface devices.
A bright AI-powered Surface future awaits
Microsoft unveiled its new lineup of business-focused Surface devices in March, including the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6. The entries will ship with Intel Core Ultra, new NPUs, and display upgrades. The company is potentially leaning toward AI PCs featuring a dedicated Copilot button.
That aside, Microsoft’s Windows and Surface engineering department has a new boss. When Panos Panay left the company and later joined Amazon, his role split into two. Pavan Davuluri took over the Surface wing, while Mikhail Parakhin handled everything Windows-related.
However, normalcy seems to have been restored at the company. Pavan Davuluri is now in charge of both Windows and Surface engineering. Microsoft also started selling replacement parts for Surface PCs, including screens, kickstands, batteries, SSDs, and more directly from the Microsoft Store. This strategy is designed to improve the repairability of Surface devices.
