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The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that the venture will focus on multicore programming and that the bulk of the work will be done at the University of California at Berkeley.

The need for more research stems from the emergence of processors with two or more processing units, or cores, which have now become mainstream. With multiple cores, chip designers can boost a machine's processing muscle in a more energy-efficient way than by increasing the processor's clock speed.

But multicore technology poses significant challenge to both hardware and software providers. Without writing programs to be optimized for multicore processors, applications will not benefit from the added chip power, or could run slower than previous chips.

Both Microsoft and Intel--as well other IT companies--have made programming tools for multicore processing a high priority in terms of product development and research.

Andrew Chien, the director of Intel Research, and Tony Hey, corporate vice president of external research at Microsoft Research, are scheduled to host the media announcement.

The amount of funding for the research, which several universities bid on, will be $2 million annually for five years, according to the Journal.