Microsoft is building Project Solara, an Android-based hardware platform designed for the AI era, as the company works to catch up in frontier AI models and custom chips.

Mustafa Suleyman, executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft AI, stated in an interview ahead of Microsoft Build that Microsoft is among the largest tech companies with resources to catch up in AI, acknowledging the company is behind competitors including Cursor, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.

Project Solara is built on the premise that hardware must change as AI takes over, addressing the problem that current apps and proprietary software controlling devices are outdated—exemplified by the lack of public APIs that prevent seamless integration between devices like scales and smartwatches with AI applications.

The article argues that as AI-created software becomes commonplace, users will demand control over their own custom software rather than using walled-off apps from hardware makers, making companies that retain tight control over product use obsolete.