Microsoft and OpenAI: Announce Multi-Billion Dollar Investment

Introduction

Microsoft and OpenAI have announced a major investment in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The multi-billion dollar, multi-year partnership will see Microsoft increase its investments in the development and deployment of specialized supercomputing systems to accelerate OpenAI’s independent AI research. Additionally, Microsoft will deploy OpenAI’s models across its consumer and enterprise products, and introduce new digital experiences.

Microsoft and OpenAI Supercomputing at Scale

As part of the partnership, Microsoft will increase its investments in the development and deployment of specialized supercomputing systems to accelerate OpenAI’s groundbreaking independent AI research. Additionally, Microsoft will continue to build out Azure’s leading AI infrastructure.This will help customers to build and deploy their AI applications on a global scale.

Microsoft and OpenAI New AI-Powered Experiences

Microsoft will deploy OpenAI’s models across its consumer and enterprise products, and introduce new categories of digital experiences built on OpenAI’s technology. This includes Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, which empowers developers to build cutting-edge AI applications through direct access to OpenAI models backed by Azure’s trusted, enterprise-grade capabilities and AI-optimized infrastructure and tools.

Microsoft and OpenAI Exclusive Cloud Provider

As OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, Azure will power all OpenAI workloads across research, products and API services.

“We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft. “In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications.”

Commitment to Responsible AI

Underpinning all of Microsoft and OpenAI’s efforts is their shared commitment to building AI systems and products that are trustworthy and safe. OpenAI’s leading research on AI Alignment and Microsoft’s Responsible AI Standard not only establish a leading and advancing framework for the safe deployment of their own AI technologies, but will also help guide the industry toward more responsible outcomes.

Conclusion

This investment is a step towards Microsoft’s goal of democratizing AI as a platform. The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI will bring advanced AI to more people, making it more accessible to developers and organizations across industries. This partnership aims to bring about transformative impact at the magnitude of the personal computer, the internet, mobile devices and the cloud.