When you think about Azure AI Foundry, it helps to picture it as a layered system. At the top you have hubs, which act as the central command center for shared resources and governance. But the real action happens inside projects. A project is where developers, data, and AI tools come together to turn an idea into a working solution.
What is a Project?
A project in Azure AI Foundry is a workspace designed for a specific AI development effort. Each project connects to a hub, giving it access to shared resources while also providing its own dedicated environment for collaboration and experimentation.
Collaboration Made Simple
Projects are built for teams. Developers can work together, share data stored in project-specific containers, and take advantage of connected resources. Because projects inherit permissions and shared assets from their hub, the setup is seamless. Teams get what they need without duplicating work.
Tools Available Inside a Project
Inside a project, Azure AI Foundry provides a rich set of features to accelerate development. These include:
- Model catalog: Browse and deploy machine learning models from Azure OpenAI, Hugging Face, and other sources.
- Playgrounds: Experiment with prompts and test how generative AI models respond before deploying them.
- Azure AI services: Use visual interfaces to configure services or connect through APIs and SDKs with secure keys.
- Visual Studio Code containers: Get a hosted development environment ready for coding, testing, and deployment.
- Fine-tuning: Customize generative AI models with your own training data and prompts.
- Prompt Flow: Orchestrate prompt logic for your applications and define how they interact with models.
- Evaluation and safety tools: Trace, assess, and improve AI applications while managing content safety and security.
- Asset management: Keep track of models, endpoints, indexes, and even deployed web apps in one place.
Why Projects Matter
Projects transform a hub’s shared resources into something usable for real development. They give teams a focused environment to experiment, test, and refine ideas without losing connection to the bigger ecosystem. With the built-in tools, a project is not just a folder of assets. It is an AI workshop that encourages innovation while maintaining structure.
Takeaway
In Azure AI Foundry, hubs provide the structure but projects bring the creativity. They are the spaces where developers collaborate, models evolve, and AI solutions take shape. If you are working on any meaningful AI initiative, projects are where your ideas will truly come to life.
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