The Ohio State University and Microsoft announce five-year strategic partnership to accelerate innovation across clinical care, education and research

Collaboration will advance a smarter, more resilient care environment; modernize cloud and data foundations; responsibly apply AI to support clinicians and researchers; and expand access to AI skills and certifications

COLUMBUS, Ohio, and REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ohio State University and Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced a five-year strategic partnership that brings together The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's leadership in healthcare, research and education with Microsoft's AI and cloud technologies to strengthen patient care, accelerate scientific discovery, support the healthcare workforce, and expand opportunities for students and communities across Ohio.

Together, Microsoft and the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center are co-developing a smart hospital model, modernizing clinical and research applications and workloads through the cloud, building a more unified data foundation, and using AI to support care teams. Over the next five years, Ohio State and Microsoft will continue to identify and advance new opportunities as healthcare, technology and patient needs evolve.

"Artificial intelligence represents one of the most significant opportunities to transform and improve how hospitals care for patients," said John J. Warner, MD, chief executive officer of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and executive vice president at Ohio State. "Through this collaboration, we have an opportunity to help reimagine the future of healthcare as we bring together Ohio State's academic medical expertise with Microsoft's technological capabilities to accelerate the pace of innovation across patient care, research and education."

"Ohio State is demonstrating what it means to modernize healthcare with purpose — connecting cloud, data and AI to empower the people who care for patients and advance discovery," said Hether Danforth, vice president, US State, Local and Education, Microsoft. "Together we're building a trusted foundation grounded in Ohio State's institutional context for AI-powered innovation — one that can give clinicians more time with patients, help researchers accelerate discovery, and turn promising ideas into meaningful advances in care."

The partnership will focus on four interconnected areas:

• Co-developing the smart hospital of the future
  Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Microsoft will advance a smart hospital model designed to connect facility, operational and clinical-support systems so technology can help care environments become more adaptive, efficient and responsive. The smart hospital platform is already in use at the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital and the James Outpatient Care facility, where initial work is improving energy efficiency and resource use while establishing a common technology foundation powered by Microsoft Azure and IoT capabilities. Ohio State Wexner Medical Center plans to extend these capabilities to additional healthcare facilities, helping teams better understand operations, use resources responsibly and respond more quickly to changing needs. The work will inform how the medical center's new University Hospital operates and create a reusable foundation for continued innovation across the health system.
• Modernizing clinical and research workloads through the cloud 
  By moving key clinical and research workloads to Microsoft Azure, Ohio State Wexner Medical Center aims to create a simpler, more secure and resilient technology environment that supports continuity of care and enables faster innovation. The partnership's ambition is to move approximately 70% to 80% of Ohio State's storage and compute to Azure, including digital pathology and imaging workloads. Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is also moving its electronic health record to Azure as a backup for business continuity. Together, these efforts can help care teams maintain access to critical systems, reduce infrastructure complexity, and allow technology teams to focus more time on improving care, advancing research and delivering outcomes.
• Building a unified, trusted data foundation for care, research and education 
  Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is creating a unified next-generation data foundation using Microsoft Fabric and OneLake to connect clinical, operational and research data across its medical center, colleges and regional campuses. With the platform's high-level design complete, early opportunities include forecasting surgical demand, staffing needs and operating room use to better match capacity with patient needs. A secure research environment on Azure can also provide investigators governed access to appropriate, de-identified data while protecting privacy. By reducing fragmented and duplicative approaches, the foundation can help authorized teams reach trusted insights faster, improve coordination across care settings and give researchers more time to pursue discoveries that could enable more personalized treatments.
• Applying AI to support clinicians, care teams and researchers 
  Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Microsoft are deploying AI capabilities designed to reduce administrative burden, support collaboration and give clinicians more time to listen, decide and care — while keeping clinical judgment, human oversight and patient relationships at the center. Clinicians are using the ambient capabilities of Dragon Copilot to securely draft clinical notes from patient visits for clinician review and finalization. The organizations are also exploring AI-supported tumor-board workflows that could bring pathology, imaging, genomics and clinical history into a more coordinated view, helping multidisciplinary teams collaborate across locations, discuss complex cases and move patients toward care plans more efficiently.

Building an AI-ready workforce and strengthening Ohio's talent pipeline

Microsoft and Ohio State will also collaborate to expand AI learning, Microsoft Learn resources and certification opportunities for caregivers, researchers, faculty, staff and students. These programs will help people build the skills needed to use new capabilities responsibly and apply them in healthcare, research, education and other fields.

As Ohio State becomes a Microsoft Training Services Provider, it will have opportunities to broaden access to Microsoft training and certifications for students, employees and community members. The collaboration is designed to create pathways to in-demand careers, strengthen Ohio's talent pipeline, and advance Ohio State's ambition of being a leader in AI fluency to accelerate research, advance education and improve lives.

Together, Ohio State and Microsoft aim to establish a secure, scalable foundation that can evolve with healthcare and technology. The partnership will build on the work already underway to improve the patient and clinician experience, accelerate discovery, strengthen workforce readiness, and demonstrate how cloud, data and responsible AI can advance an academic health system's mission.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of customers around the world. The technology company is committed to making AI broadly available and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

About Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

One of the United States' leading academic medical centers, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center offers healthcare services in virtually every specialty and subspecialty in medicine. We anchor one of the most comprehensive health sciences campuses in North America and are nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report. The medical center's 24,000 physicians, scientists and staff are dedicated to providing world-class care for every person, every time; to delivering relentless innovation to improve lives; and to making this the best place to work and learn.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.