Weather and climate

Microsoft Aurora

A foundation model of Earth's atmosphere: global weather forecasts, plus separate versions for air quality and ocean waves. Computes a forecast in seconds instead of hours on a supercomputer.

Developer
Microsoft Research, USA
First release
Aug 2024
Latest release
Jul 2026
Sizes
about 1.3B (a small test version is available)
License
Commercial use allowedMIT
Running
On your own serverNeeds a GPU
Industries
Manufacturing and logistics, Finance, Science and research, Public sector
Deploy on your server Hugging Face GitHub

What it does

  • Your own forecast of temperature, wind and precipitation for company locations
  • Sea state estimates for planning voyages and port operations
  • Air pollution forecasts for industrial sites
  • Fine-tuning on your own weather station data for local needs

Where it is used

Logistics and shippingEnergy (wind, grid load)Weather risk insuranceAgricultural holdings

Hardware requirements

LaptopLaptop or regular PC, up to 8 GB of VRAM — smaller versions
no versions
1 GPUOne GPU with 16–80 GB — mid-size versions
fits
ClusterServer with several GPUs — flagship versions
no versions

Versions

  1. Aurora 1.5
  2. Aurora Air Pollution и Wave
  3. Aurora 0.25° и 0.1°

How to run it

On your own serverWeights are downloaded from Hugging Face and served with vLLM (load and API) or llama.cpp (modest hardware). The model then runs in a closed network with no per-request fees.Hugging Face
How much hardware you needCalculate the VRAM for the model size, context length and number of concurrent requests.Open the hardware calculator

I can set this up end to end: pick the model size, deploy it on your server and connect it to your systems.

Frequently asked questions

Can Microsoft Aurora be used in a commercial project?

Yes. License: MIT. It allows commercial use, but it is still worth having a lawyer review the license before launch.

What hardware does Microsoft Aurora need?

At minimum: One GPU with 16–80 GB — mid-size versions. Without a GPU the model is not practical. You can calculate the exact VRAM for your model size and context in the hardware calculator.

Does Microsoft Aurora support Russian?

Language does not matter for this model: it does not work with text.

Where can I download Microsoft Aurora and what does it cost?

The Microsoft Aurora weights are open and free to download. You only pay for the hardware it runs on and for the setup. Source links are at the bottom of this page.

How I deploy it for clients

  1. SelectionI pick the model size for your task and hardware and test it on your examples.
  2. DeploymentI deploy it on your server or in a closed network and provide an API.
  3. Fine-tuningI fine-tune it on your data (LoRA) or connect a knowledge base — whichever is cheaper for the task.
  4. IntegrationI connect it to your CRM, ERP, bot, website or team chat and set up monitoring.

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Details

Source: github.com/microsoft/aurora/releases. Data checked against the model card on 22 Sep 2026. Have a lawyer review the license before commercial launch.