Microsoft today announced that it has acquired JClarity, leading contributor to the AdoptOpenJDK project, for an undisclosed amount. In a blog post published this morning, VP of program management for developer tools and services John Montgomery said the purchase will bolster Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform by increasing performance for Java workloads.

“Microsoft Azure and JClarity engineers will be working together to make Azure a better platform for our Java customers and internal teams, improving the experience … of the platform for Java developers and end-users,” said Montgomery. “At Microsoft, we strongly believe that we can do more for our customers by working alongside the Java community … The [JClarity] team, formed by Java champions and data scientists with proven expertise in data-driven Java Virtual Machine (JVM) optimizations, will help teams at Microsoft to leverage advancements in the Java platform.”

Microsoft and JClarity aren’t exactly strangers. Since June 2018, Microsoft has sponsored the AdoptOpenJDK project to help build binaries of OpenJDK — a free and open source implementation of the Java Platform Standard Edition — for platforms such as Linux and Windows. Microsoft is a platinum-level sponsor of AdoptOpenJDF through 2020, and it recently worked with the project to build and deliver a Java installer for its popular Visual Studio Code lightweight code editor.

JClarity CEO Martijn Verburg — now a Java principal engineering group manager at Microsoft — said JClarity will continue to contribute to various Java communities post-purchase, adding that the company’s support team will reach out to customers in the coming weeks to provide guidance on “product and support matters.”

“It’s always been JClarity’s core mission to support the Java ecosystem. We started with our world-class performance tooling and then later became a leader in the AdoptOpenJDK project,” said Verburg in a statement. “Microsoft leads the world in backing developers and their communities, and after speaking to their engineering and program leadership it was a no-brainer to enter formal discussions. With the passion and deep expertise of Microsoft’s people, we’ll be able to support the Java ecosystem better than ever before.”

Microsoft’s acquisition of JClarity comes as the Redmond tech giant is increasing its usage of Java. Azure’s open source analytics service HDInsight and Minecraft both use Java, as do big-name Azure clients like Adobe, Daimler, and Société Générale.

According to an April report published by SlashData, approximately 7.6 million developers actively code using Java worldwide.