Microsoft (MSFT) Leads Cloud Race as First to Validate Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 AI System

Key Highlights Azure claims first-mover status by validating Nvidia’s advanced Vera Rubin NVL72 infrastructure Satya Nadella shared the announcement via X on Friday afternoon The NVL72 rack configuration provides 3.6 exaflops of computational power — a five-fold improvement over GB200 architecture Each rack houses 72 Rubin GPUs paired with 36 custom Vera CPUs, interconnected through sixth-generation NVLink at 260TB/s Competitors including AWS, Google Cloud, CoreWeave, Nebius, and Oracle plan Rubin deployments throughout 2026 In a significant move that positions it ahead of competitors, Microsoft Azure has achieved a milestone as the inaugural cloud platform to validate Nvidia’s cutting-edge Vera Rubin NVL72 infrastructure. The announcement came Friday afternoon through a social media post by CEO Satya Nadella on X, who described it as “another big step in building the next generation of AI infrastructure.” We’re the first cloud to bring up an NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 system for validation, another big step in building the next generation of AI infrastructure with NVIDIA. pic.twitter.com/apPyKh0HRK — Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) March 13, 2026 Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 represents a complete rack-scale solution, integrating 72 Rubin graphics processors alongside 36 specially designed Arm-based Vera central processing units. These components are interconnected through sixth-generation NVLink technology, enabling data transfer speeds reaching 260 terabytes per second. Microsoft Corporation, MSFT The performance gains are substantial. Every NVL72 configuration can achieve computational speeds up to 3.6 exaflops — approximately five times greater than the GB200-based infrastructure it’s designed to succeed. Rani Borkar, who serves as President of Azure Hardware Systems at Microsoft, emphasized the extensive preparation involved. “Microsoft has years of market-proven experience in designing and deploying scalable AI infrastructure that evolves with every major advanceme...