GitHub and Microsoft, GitHub’s corporate parent, are joining the steering committee for MCP, Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides.
The announcement, which was made at Microsoft’s Build 2025 conference on Monday, comes as MCP gains steam in the AI industry. Earlier this year, both OpenAI and Google said they would support MCP in their respective AI products.
MCP lets models draw data from sources like business tools and software to complete tasks, as well as from content repositories and app development environments. The protocol enables developers to build two-way connections between data sources and AI-powered applications, such as chatbots.
Developers can expose data through “MCP servers” and build “MCP clients” — for instance, apps and workflows — that connect to those servers on command.
Microsoft and GitHub say that they’ll deliver “broad first-party support” for MCP across their platforms and services, including Microsoft Azure and Windows 11. For example, in the next few months, Windows will gain MCP integrations that allow developers to expose the functionality of apps to MCP-enabled models.
“Developers will be able to wrap desired features and capabilities in their apps as MCP servers and make them available […] for Windows,” explains Microsoft in press materials provided to TechCrunch. “This will include Windows system functionalities like File System, Windowing, and Windows Subsystem for Linux as MCP servers for [models] to interact with.”
GitHub and Microsoft are also making several contributions to the MCP standard.
Microsoft says that its identity and security teams collaborated with Anthropic, the MCP steering committee, and the broader MCP community to design an updated authorization spec that allows MCP-connected apps to more securely connect to MCP servers. The spec enables people to use “trusted sign-in methods” to give AI-powered apps access to data and services including personal storage drives and subscription plans.
Meanwhile, GitHub says that it and the MCP steering committee collaborated to design a registry service for MCP servers. The service allows developers to implement public or private, centralized repositories for MCP server entries and enable the discovery and management of various MCP implementations with their associated configurations.
Kyle Wiggers is TechCrunch’s AI Editor. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Manhattan with his partner, a music therapist.
