weather
Aurora
Microsoft Research Earth-system foundation model trained on more than one million hours of geophysical data, with fine-tunes for air quality, waves and cyclones. Code MIT; weight licence not stated on Azure page.
Levelmodel
Classweather
Parameters1.3B
Contextnot in the notes
Released21 May 2025
Opennessopen source
Runs onmulti-GPU node, single datacentre GPU
Statusactive
Benchmark Results
maintainer-run
WeatherBench 2 2domain
Z500 day 10, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
668.4
0450900
Score in RMSE m2/s2. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
Z500 day 5, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
262.8
0450900
Score in RMSE m2/s2. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
Z500 day 3, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
119.8
0450900
Score in RMSE m2/s2. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
Z500 day 1, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
38.1
0450900
Score in RMSE m2/s2. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
T850 day 10, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
2.979
024
Score in RMSE K. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
T850 day 5, deterministic, Aurora (oper.) vs Analysismaintainer-run
1.501
024
Score in RMSE K. Lower is better.
year 2022, 240x121 grid
Where this comes from
Every score names who ran it: vendor-reported, maintainer-run or independent. A rank is shown with the population it was ranked in (gap rule 3).
Identity
- Developer
- Microsoft AI
- Family
- not in the notes
- Released
- 21 May 2025 sourcesannouncement page
- Weights published
- –
- Record checked
- 10 Oct 2026
Where this comes from
Developer and dates from the research notes. Release date is the vendor's public announcement; weights date is when open weights were published.
Architecture and Size
- Architecture
- dense transformer 1.3B atmosphere foundation model; about 11 km
- Total parameters
- 1.3B sources
- Active parameters
- –
- Checkpoint parameters
- –
- Context length
- not in the notes
- Input
- sensor
- Output
- sensor
Where this comes from
Parameter counts as the developer states them. Where the checkpoint holds a different total, both are shown (register A16).
Openness and Access
- Openness
- open source
- Licence
- MIT License sources
- Access routes
- open weights download
Where this comes from
The licence file governs over registry tags and aggregator labels.
Deployment
- Runs on
- multi-GPU node, single datacentre GPU
- Footprint
- PyPI microsoft-aurora 2.0.1, 4 Aug 2026; tagged Experimental on Azure
- Runtimes
- not in the notes
Where this comes from
Deployment tiers and runtimes as named in the notes. Footprint is the notes' figure, not a measurement by AURION.
Indonesia
- Indonesian support
- not stated
- Regional languages
- not in the notes
- Jakarta hosting
- unknown
- Languages
- not in the notes
Where this comes from
Indonesia fields are carried on every model; unknown is an allowed value.
Lineage
The notes record no lineage for this model.
Industry Use Cases
No industry use case links this model.
Links
DeveloperMicrosoft AIbig tech, USA
Microsoft AIbig tech, USAModelAuroraMicrosoft AI, weather
AuroraMicrosoft AI, weatherUse CasesWeather ForecastingAgricultureUse cases of models in the same R&D topic; none is recorded for this model itself.
Who Runs It
Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG)Contract signed, 5 Feb 2026Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG)In production, 23 Sep 2025Deployments of these use cases; none names this model.
Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG)Contract signed, 5 Feb 2026Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG)In production, 23 Sep 2025Deployments of these use cases; none names this model.Organisations 1
Sources
- Aurora - Microsoft Foundry Labs labs.ai.azure.com https://labs.ai.azure.com/innovations/aurora/
- A foundation model for the Earth system - Nature nature.com https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09005-y
- GitHub - microsoft/aurora: Implementation of the Aurora model for Earth system forecasting github.com https://github.com/microsoft/aurora
- pypi.org/pypi/microsoft-aurora/json https://pypi.org/pypi/microsoft-aurora/json
- huggingface.co/api/models/microsoft/aurora https://huggingface.co/api/models/microsoft/aurora
To cite this page: Project AURION, AI Use-Cases Research & Innovation, "Aurora", https://aurion.semai.id/models/microsoft-aurora/, records of October 2026.