The new frontier of data for the next generation of innovation

A decade ago, an agent that could gather insights from data, trigger actions and make intelligent decisions was science fiction. Today, that kind of intelligent technology is not only possible, but it’s becoming a business requirement. Enterprises must find new and meaningful ways to propel AI innovation that meets customer and business needs. The next generation of innovation requires a data foundation that is unified, secure, and addresses persistent challenges of latency, rigidity, and complexity, while infusing data with AI to optimize performance and accelerate development.  

This week at Ignite, Microsoft is taking a bold step toward making a future-ready data foundation a reality, unveiling innovations that deliver performance, scale and flexibility, and bridge the gap between analytical intelligence and operational agility. The innovations we’re announcing are catalysts for businesses to modernize faster and build the intelligent applications of tomorrow. By leveraging a unified data strategy on Azure, BMW is much closer to their goal of predictive maintenance for vehicles and smart factories. With these releases announced today at Ignite, Azure is poised to deliver a resilient, scalable, and AI-integrated data foundation that will help you unlock innovation at scale. 

Modeling a future-proofed data platform 

A future-proofed data platform should deliver performance at scale, flexibility and openness, unified operations and analytics, streamlined management, and seamless integration with developer tools, all backed by security and trust. The innovations we’re announcing reflect these priorities. 

Performance at any scale 

We’re releasing performance enhancements across the database portfolio that let users easily scale performance to support intelligent agents and applications that can stand apart in any industry. These new features enable applications backed by Microsoft databases to seamlessly handle massive throughput and global user loads without performance bottlenecks. 

Introducing Azure HorizonDB 

We’re excited to unveil Azure HorizonDB in private preview, a new fully managed PostgreSQL service built for performance and AI workloads that will offer scaling up to 192 virtual cores and 128 TB of storage. Azure HorizonDB is built for business and engineered for developers. Ultra-low latency, high read scale, built in AI, and deep integration with developer tools including GitHub Copilot delivers performance, resilience and simplicity at any scale. With HorizonDB, teams can: 

• Build AI apps that perform at scale with advanced DiskANN vector indexing, pre-provisioned AI models, semantic search, and unified support for relational and graph data. 

• Accelerate app development with built-in extensions, including the PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio (VS) Code integrated with GitHub Copilot. GitHub Copilot in VS Code is context aware of PostgreSQL and includes one-click performance debugging. 

• Unlock data insights with deep integrations with Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Foundry.  

• Expect reliability with a service that is enterprise ready on day one, integrated with Entra ID, Private Link networking, and Azure Defender for Cloud. 

Perfecting performance across the portfolio 

We’re also addressing cloud-ready performance and scaling needs in Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure SQL. Elastic Clusters for Azure Database for PostgreSQL, now generally available, enables developers to easily scale a single database across a cluster of read and write nodes using a simple SQL command. Additionally, new v6 SKUs, which support up to 192 vCores, and general availability of PostgreSQL 18 gives Azure Database for PostgreSQL users a potent performance boost.  

With the release of the next-generation Azure SQL Managed Instance, we’re helping you modernize SQL Server in the cloud with better performance and easier migration. You’ll now have access to the latest technology, unlocking better performance and scale with more storage and database capacity. Flexible compute, storage and memory options also enhance the ROI of migration and offer broad compatibility for unique workload demands. 

Multi-modal, flexible and open 

A comprehensive data strategy isn’t one-size fits all. Openness and flexibility are core tenants of a future-ready data platform. Flexibility means you get to choose the deployment model that works for your business, whether it’s on-premises, cloud only or hybrid. Beyond having flexibility for where your data lives, the modern data platform should also support multiple data models and open APIs to reduce complexity and enable extensibility as workload needs and team resources evolve. That’s why Azure fully embraces, supports, and contributes to open-source innovation. 

Meet the new Azure DocumentDB 

We’re excited to announce the general availability of Azure DocumentDB, the new name for our MongoDB-compatible NoSQL document database service with hybrid and multi-cloud flexibility. Powered by the open-source DocumentDB engine managed by the Linux Foundation, Azure DocumentDB is designed for enterprise workloads with the flexibility to build anywhere and run managed on Azure. It includes native vector search powered by DiskANN and full-text search, and it supports advanced search scenarios that combine fuzzy search and BM25 ranking for smarter, more accurate query results.  

Support for translytical workloads 

A translytical data platform is designed to support both transactional and analytical workloads. This combo is crucial for responsive, real-time AI applications. A future-proofed data strategy should natively bridge operational data and analytical insight; a capability we’re delivering with Microsoft Fabric. 

Unifying data with Fabric databases 

Fabric databases are now generally available, bringing together SQL database and Cosmos DB inside Microsoft Fabric. Built natively into Microsoft Fabric, Fabric databases bridge the gap between traditional databases and data lakes, enabling real-time analytics, transactional processing, and AI workloads to run side by side in one governed environment. Every Fabric Database automatically connects to your organizational data mesh, ready for Power BI, AI, and Copilot experiences. 

Replicating databases with zero ETL, in near real time, with mirroring 

If you prefer to keep your operational databases where they are, you can still take advantage of Fabric’s unified data foundation with database mirroring, which is now generally available in Microsoft Fabric, supporting SQL Server, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL. With mirroring, you can replicate these databases in Fabric for business analytics and AI scenarios without migrating or refactoring. 

Several early adopters are already experiencing real results with Fabric Databases and mirroring. AP Pension, a Danish pension fund, has consolidated decades of fragmented data using Microsoft Fabric, enabling a unified, governed analytics platform for actuarial, finance, and development teams. With Fabric, they’ve built a centralized medallion architecture, automated data delivery via APIs, and supported real-time write-back from Power BI through SQL Databases — all with strong governance and security baked in.  

General availability of SQL Server 2025 

SQL Server 2025 is now generally available following an outstanding preview with 10,000 participating organizations, double the download rates of SQL Server 2022, and more than one million databases created so far. Built on SQL Server’s foundation of trusted security, performance and availability, SQL Server 2025 redefines what's possible for enterprise data. With built-in AI and developer-first enhancements, SQL Server 2025 empowers customers to accelerate AI innovation using the data they already have, securely and at scale, all within SQL Server using the familiar T-SQL language. 

AI at the core 

We believe that AI is a force multiplier for the data platform itself, so every Azure database is deeply embedded with AI capabilities transforming them from passive data stores into active, intelligent engines for AI-powered applications. Azure databases are built to understand, reason and act, which translates to faster, more accurate search, smarter recommendations, streamlined developer workflows, and the ability to power agentic and generative AI workloads without friction. 

Azure SQL integrates DiskANN 

DiskANN, Microsoft’s cutting-edge vector search algorithm, is now natively integrated into SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance. DiskANN delivers fast, scalable, and highly accurate approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search, handling millions to billions of vectors with low latency and high recall. This enables developers to build intelligent, AI-powered applications more efficiently directly within the database engine, eliminating the need for external vector databases and simplifying the architecture for future AI-native apps. 

Azure Cosmos DB supercharged by AI 

Azure Cosmos DB continues to evolve as the backbone for AI-powered, globally distributed applications. At Ignite, we’re introducing a new wave of enhancements that make vector search, text retrieval, and semantic relevance faster, more intuitive, and more intelligent for modern AI workloads. One of the biggest improvements comes from advancements in Azure Cosmos DB vector search powered by DiskANN. The latest engine optimizations significantly boost throughput and reduce latency for vector insert and update operations. Additional enhancements include: 

• General availability of fuzzy search in Azure Cosmos DB full-text search, which enables more flexible text matching. 

• General availability of Azure Cosmos DB Fleets, allowing multi-tenant apps to share throughput capacity across multiple database accounts while maintaining full security and performance isolation for their tenants. 

• Public preview of fleet analytics that provide insights for multi-tenant workload optimization and growth planning.  

Azure Database for PostgreSQL optimizes developer experiences 

We’ve also made improvements to Azure Database for PostgreSQL to help developers streamline their workflows and build and scale next-gen AI solutions faster with confidence. The PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio (VS) Code, now generally available, seamlessly unifies DBA and developer workflows for PostgreSQL databases—on Azure or anywhere. The improved extension, which already reached more than 250K installs in preview, gives developers a familiar, productive environment to work with PostgreSQL, complete with Azure AD authentication and GitHub Copilot AI assistance for SQL coding. Azure Database for PostgreSQL is also now natively integrated with Microsoft Foundry, enabling developers to build intelligent, secure AI apps and agents with minimal friction. 

Grounded in security and trust 

Innovation shouldn’t come at the expense of security. A unified data platform should have end-to-end governance and security built in for enterprise-grade resilience as you build what’s next. At Microsoft, we continue to deliver a secure cloud environment for your data with features like Microsoft Purview for data governance and unified identity and access controls across the entire Azure data estate.  Most recently, we’ve announced:  

• Access token refresh with Entra ID for Azure Database for PostgreSQL, which enables database connections using AD credentials to automatically renew tokens, eliminating disruptions and ensuring strong identity-based security without added complexity. 

• Confidential Compute in Azure Database for PostgreSQL, which provides access to Confidential Virtual Machines (CVMs) to protect sensitive data even during processing. 

The next frontier of data is here 

BMW has already begun to embrace the next frontier of data. They modernized their Mobile Data Recorder (MDR) system on Azure to deploy multi-agent AI that enables their engineers to instantly analyze telemetry data. Azure Cosmos DB provides persistent storage for chat conversations and memory, while Azure Database for PostgreSQL supports structured telemetry analysis and feedback mechanisms. Both integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Foundry Agent Service, which BMW leverages to orchestrate specialized agents. This solution helped them deliver insights 12x faster, embed AI-driven workflows into daily engineering, and accelerate innovation across their global operations. 

As someone who’s seen data technology evolve, I’m excited about how the latest capabilities and integrations across the Azure database portfolio simplify architectures while opening new doors. They represent Microsoft’s commitment to helping customers innovate with a unified, intelligent data estate. The organizations that lead in the AI era will be those that have their data house in order; our goal at Microsoft is to give you the keys to that house. With a unified data platform, you’re not just solving today’s problems—you’re building a foundation for endless innovation. 

Join us online or in person at Microsoft Ignite November 18—21, 2025, to see these announcements in action and get insights on building your own future-ready data strategy.