Microsoft Will Soon Help Ebola Researchers Develop A Vaccine

Microsoft on Tuesday will announce a program that gives free access to its cloud for Ebola researchers working on a vaccine.

That's like giving them free use of a supercomputer.

This follows news that Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg are donating $25 million to the CDC Foundation to fight Ebola.

CEO Satya Nadella mentioned this in passing during a press conference on Microsoft's cloud in San Francisco on Monday.

This isn't the first time that Microsoft has given researchers free access to Azure. It launched a program about a year ago that gives 100 grants to University researchers, too. (Amazon also offers a similar grant program for university researchers on its, cloud.)

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who is hugely involved with charitable healthcare initiatives, is also stepping up his Ebola efforts, he told The Guardian earlier this month.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been active in creating new malaria vaccines, so he's been talking to those vaccine experts on what can be done to create treatments for Ebola.

With Gates involved, it makes perfect sense that Microsoft would give these researchers access to Microsoft's massive cloud, available in 19 countries.