On July 2, 2026, Microsoft announced Microsoft Frontier Company, a new operating business backed by a $2.5 billion investment that embeds 6,000 industry and engineering experts at customer organizations to co-design, deploy, and continuously improve AI systems at scale. The announcement was published on the Official Microsoft Blog by Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business.
Rodrigo Kede Lima, a 30-year industry veteran who spent the prior six years leading Microsoft enterprise transformations across the Americas and Asia, was named President of the new company. Microsoft frames the offering as going beyond what the industry has labeled Forward Deployed Engineering, combining deep industry knowledge, change management, and enterprise-grade AI engineering, with engagements tied to measurable business outcomes.
The announcement named LSEG, Unilever, Land O’Lakes, and Novo Nordisk among early customers, and Accenture, Capgemini, EY, KPMG, and PwC as ecosystem partners. Microsoft also emphasized protecting customer intellectual property and using model-diverse, open platforms rather than locking clients to a single vendor or model.
The launch came two days after AWS announced its $1 billion Forward Deployed Engineering unit, with Microsoft attaching a figure more than twice as large. Together the two announcements mark the week the hyperscalers turned hands-on AI deployment itself into a product line.