Microsoft releases a preview of .NET 9. The open source development platform focuses on cloud-native development and artificial intelligence in the new version.

Developers can get started with the .NET 9 preview today. In addition to the overall improvements in performance, productivity and security, two key areas of focus stand out in this release: cloud-native development and, how could it be otherwise, AI. Microsoft explains its future vision for the .NET platform in a blog.

Cloud-native application development will be considered even more comprehensively in .NET 9, explains Microsoft. Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code will include new development and deployment experiences for .NET Aspire. This includes configuring components, debugging the AppHost, and full integration into the developer dashboard. Microsoft also wants to make it easier to scale applications developed in .NET 9 with Azure Container Apps.

More AI

No announcement today is complete without mentioning artificial intelligence. .NET 8 opened the doors for smoother AI integration into the development platform and the upcoming version continues this course. .NET 9 provides documentation on OpenAI models as well as open source models. This is intended to give developers the tools they need to spice up their applications with a pinch of AI.

The .NET 9 preview can be downloaded from Github, where a backlog with additional information can also be viewed. We may have to wait until November for the stable release. Traditionally, Microsoft presents new versions during the annual .NET conference. This happened last year with the release of .NET 8.