The article on futurism.com references an article on theverge.com https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/26/23889956/microsoft-next-g... which in references a job posting on microsoft.com https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/job/1627555/Pri... This story very much reminds me of "The Submarine": http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html I.e. Microsoft is not pursuing SMRs, but some marketing agency have successfully planted the job posting and is successfully making media amplify the buzz. Or if the story is true it is still just a job posting, and you can't draw that big conclusions from it.