The native token of blockchain infrastructure provider Ankr surged on Tuesday after the team announced a partnership with Microsoft.

In a Feb. 21 announcement, Ankr said it was collaborating with tech giant Microsoft to offer node hosting services for enterprises to access blockchain.

The partnership will integrate technology from both companies, pairing Ankr’s blockchain infrastructure with Microsoft’s cloud solutions. It will allow Web3 companies that require dedicated nodes to relay transactions, deploy smart contracts and read and write blockchain data. 

“The end result will be an era of extremely prolific building for blockchain-based applications from new Web3 projects as well as large enterprises entering the space,” said Ankr CEO and co-founder Chandler Song. 

Ankr’s remote procedure call (RPC) service allows developers to connect cloud nodes to 27 different blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and BNB Chain. By partnering with Microsoft, users will also be able to use Microsoft’s cloud platform to scale their applications.

Specifically, the enterprise node deployment service will offer low-latency blockchain connections with the ability to adjust bandwidth according to unique use cases.

Ankr’s native token ANKR surged 65% from $0.033 to a high of $0.053 within an hour of the news. Some traders capitalized on the price movement to secure a considerable amount of profit.

In December, Ankr suffered a $5 million token exploit, which the team later revealed was executed by a former member of the team. The employee attacked the protocol by inserting malicious code which compromised the protocol’s private keys. At the time, Ankr said it would be shoring up its HR processes to prevent internal threats from bad actors going forward.