GitHub and Microsoft Join Anthropic’s AI Data Connection Standard

GitHub and its parent company, Microsoft, have joined the steering committee for Anthropic’s MCP, a standard for linking AI models to data systems.

Revealed at Microsoft’s Build 2025 conference on Monday, this move highlights MCP’s growing traction in the AI sector. Earlier this year, OpenAI and Google announced their support for MCP in their AI offerings.

MCP enables AI models to access data from business tools, software, content repositories, and app development platforms to perform tasks. The protocol supports developers in creating bidirectional links between data sources and AI-driven applications, such as chatbots.

Developers can create “MCP servers” to expose data and build “MCP clients,” like apps and workflows, that connect to these servers on demand.

Microsoft and GitHub plan to provide extensive support for MCP across their platforms, including Microsoft Azure and Windows 11. In the coming months, Windows will introduce MCP integrations, enabling developers to make app functionalities available to MCP-enabled models.

“Developers can package app features as MCP servers, making them accessible […] on Windows,” Microsoft shared in a statement to TechCrunch. “This includes system functions like File System, Windowing, and Windows Subsystem for Linux as MCP servers for [models] to engage with.”

GitHub and Microsoft are also contributing to the MCP standard’s development.

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Microsoft’s identity and security teams worked with Anthropic, the MCP steering committee, and the wider MCP community to develop an enhanced authorization specification. This update allows MCP-connected apps to securely access MCP servers using trusted sign-in methods, enabling access to data and services like personal storage and subscription plans.

GitHub, in collaboration with the MCP steering committee, has developed a registry service for MCP servers. This service supports public or private centralized repositories for MCP server entries, simplifying the discovery and management of various MCP implementations and their configurations.