Microsoft and 3M have struck a two-way partnership that pairs cloud infrastructure with materials science. Microsoft becomes the first hyperscale cloud provider to deploy 3M's Expanded Beam Optical (EBO) technology across Azure Cloud and AI Infrastructure, while 3M in turn adopts Microsoft's AI and digital platforms to transform its own customer service, finance, sales and marketing operations.
Expanded Beam Optical Deployment
The infrastructure piece of the deal centres on 3M's EBO technology, which changes how fibre connections are deployed and maintained in hyperscale environments. Where traditional optical connectors rely on direct physical contact, EBO uses an expanded beam optical interface instead, making connections quicker to install and more tolerant of contamination.
That matters more as AI clusters grow in size and network complexity: the technology can reduce the need for routine cleaning and inspection while maintaining optical performance in dusty, frequently handled data centre environments. Early deployments have already shown the potential to shorten network installation timelines while keeping signal performance reliable under live operating conditions. 3M is now ramping up production capacity and helped establish the EBO Multi-Source Agreement to push standardisation across the industry.
"At Microsoft, we're redefining the foundation of cloud and AI infrastructure – combining our own innovations with advances from partners like 3M to build data centres that are faster to deploy, more resilient and ready for the scale of AI."— Cliff Henson, Corporate Vice President, Cloud Supply Chain and Engineering, Microsoft
Enterprise AI Integration
The agreement reaches beyond infrastructure into 3M's own operations. The company plans to deploy Microsoft AI across customer service, finance, sales and marketing as part of a wider enterprise transformation programme.
One of the first projects sits under Microsoft's Frontier Company initiative, where engineers are working with 3M's Global Business Services team to automate customer order management. The companies are building an AI agent-driven workflow to handle credit checks, delinquency assessments and system updates, while keeping human oversight through monitoring dashboards that provide real-time visibility and approvals — aiming to cut manual processes, improve consistency and accelerate cash flow.