Azure OpenAI Service now authorized for all U.S. Government data classification levels

In the coming years, artificial intelligence will continue to be foundational to technical innovations for national security missions. Already, U.S. defense and intelligence organizations are using AI to enhance productivity, support decision making, and improve mission outcomes. Microsoft Azure is a backbone for this type of AI-driven work, supporting U.S. government missions with high resiliency, sophisticated capabilities, flexibility, and advanced security, designed to meet the stringent compliance requirements of the nation’s most sensitive data.

Today, we are excited to share that Azure OpenAI Service has been authorized by Defense Information Security Agency for U.S. Department of Defense workloads at Impact Level 6 (IL6). With this announcement, Azure OpenAI Service is now authorized for workloads at all U.S. Government data classification levels.

Azure OpenAI Service is part of Microsoft’s comprehensive AI platform providing access to OpenAI’s industry-leading large language models as well as a host of other AI capabilities, including:  

• Document and text translation  

• Speech-to-text and text-to-speech 

• Text classification 

• Entity extraction 

• Object detection 

• Content safety  

• Search 

The platform also provides a full set of tools for data scientists to build custom AI models or run open-source models from our model catalog with full ML Ops capabilities. All these are available with the scalability, reliability, and enterprise-grade security of Microsoft Azure.  

Azure OpenAI authorized for workloads at all U.S. Government data classification levels  

In early February, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Information Security Agency (DISA) authorized Azure OpenAI Services for IL-6 designated information with Microsoft’s Azure for U.S. Government Secret cloud.  

Earlier this year, Azure OpenAI Service was authorized for use in Microsoft Azure for U.S. Government Top Secret cloud, operating in accordance with Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 503. In September 2024, Azure OpenAI Service was approved as a service within the FedRAMP High Authorization for Azure for U.S. Government cloud and approved as a service by DISA within the DoD Impact Level 4 (IL4) and Impact Level 5 (IL5) Provisional Authorization for Azure Government. 

With these authorizations, government customers and partners can leverage Azure OpenAI Service for their mission needs, accelerating innovation, improving efficiency, and increasing productivity across all data classification levels. 

A comprehensive portfolio of AI capabilities for your mission needs 

Azure OpenAI Service is one part of a comprehensive AI portfolio available on the Microsoft Azure for U.S. Government clouds.  

• Azure AI Services help developers build ready-to-use AI applications with out-of-the-box and customizable APIs and models. Even without direct AI or data science skills, developers can build applications using pre-built and customizable APIs and models for natural language processing, vision, speech, content safety, and decision-making.  

• Azure AI Search is an information retrieval platform, designed to optimize retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and modern search. Organizations can store, index, and search their own data, delivering current information to AI models. With Azure AI Search, customers can surface the most relevant information with cutting-edge technology including semantic ranking, vector, and hybrid search.  

• Finally, while Microsoft is committed to providing industry-leading large language models from OpenAI, we also recognize that some mission requirements benefit from other models. Azure Machine Learning is a cloud service for accelerating and managing the machine learning project lifecycle. It supports the training, deployment, and management of machine learning models, including open-source models and open-source foundation models. It also provides tools for MLOps to monitor, retrain, and redeploy models.  

All services are available and authorized across Microsoft Azure’s government and classified clouds: Azure for U.S. Government, Azure for U.S. Government Secret and Azure for U.S. Government Top Secret. 

Expanding access to AI through Microsoft’s partner ecosystem 

Microsoft’s expanding partner ecosystem is leveraging the full capability of Microsoft’s AI-driven cloud platforms.  

• In early March, start-up Scale AI announced that they are partnering with Microsoft to develop and deploy AI-powered solutions for mission partners at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and European Command, as part of a newly awarded contract by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit. The solutions will enable operational commanders to quickly ingest, process, and summarize large volumes of information to produce draft operations plans, concepts, and operations orders. 

• Microsoft also recently announced AI-focused partnerships with Anduril Industries and Palantir Technologies. These partnerships establish Microsoft Azure as Anduril’s preferred hyperscale cloud for all workloads related to Anduril AI technologies, and makes Palantir one of the early adopters of Azure OpenAI Service within Microsoft Azure for U.S. Government Secret and Microsoft Azure for U.S. Government Top Secret clouds.  

• Additionally, Andworx, a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Partner with a Top Secret Facility Security Clearance, integrates Microsoft AI Services, including Azure OpenAI, into low-code Microsoft Power Platform solutions across the Federal Government and Department of Defense.  

Microsoft’s partner offerings continue to expand and evolve to meet an increasing number of mission requirements.  In addition to the partners mentioned above, there is a growing list of Solution Providers onboarding to our classified environments. You can see a snapshot of current partner offerings below: 

Getting started with Microsoft AI capabilities 

Microsoft is committed to providing U.S. government customers and their partners with access to highly resilient and secure AI capabilities through Azure’s commercial, U.S. government, and classified clouds. These capabilities are critical to enabling government customers and industry partners to transform America’s world-leading AI advancements into next-generation military and national security capabilities. 

To get started with Azure OpenAI Service to serve your mission objectives, contact your Microsoft representative or visit Transformative Cloud Solutions l Microsoft Federal to learn more about AI and other transformative cloud solutions.