Singapore: In a recent press gathering, Microsoft announced that they will provide free cloud-computing and research applications to qualified medical researchers working on the Ebola virus.

Mr Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft said, "One of the things  we are going to do tomorrow morning is make available Azure-cloud computing platform to the research community."

The platform is essentially a group of data centers that allow users to access large amounts of information and computing power remotely over the internet.

Mr Nadella also said that Microsoft researchers had designed few research tools to aid Ebola vaccine discovery. The company said that its research team was further soliciting cloud computing proposals for projects that are working towards developing a better understanding of the spread and cure of the Ebola virus.

Microsoft also plans to award this cloud computing platform to qualifying proposals from researchers affiliated with academic institutions. This will help in analyzing large sets of data, which would be difficult to study using only local computers and networks.