Microsoft today announced that it is expanding its partnership with OpenAI, the startup behind AI systems that generate art and text such as ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and GPT-3, with an investment of “multiple years and billions of dollars”. The AI says the new capital injection, the exact amount of which has not been disclosed, will be used to continue its research and “develop an AI that remains safer, more useful and more powerful”.
OpenAI will remain a limited profit company as part of the deal. According to the model, the return of the sponsors is limited to 100 times the investment, or possibly less in the future.
In a blog post, Microsoft said it will increase its investment in the development and deployment of specialized supercomputing systems to accelerate OpenAI AI research and deploy OpenAI AI systems in its consumer and enterprise products while opening “new categories of digital experiences from launch based on OpenAI technology.The tech giant’s Azure cloud platform remains OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, supporting all of the startup’s API service, product, and research workloads.
The effort builds on years of close collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI. In 2019, Microsoft announced it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI to co-develop new technologies for Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and “advance” AI capabilities at scale. In return, OpenAI agreed to license some of its intellectual property to Microsoft, which the company would market and sell to partners and train and run AI models on Azure, while OpenAI worked to develop of next generation computer hardware.
In 2020, Microsoft announced that it had built a supercomputer, co-developed by OpenAI, hosted on Azure, which was one of the most powerful machines in the world at the time. Then in 2021, Microsoft released the Azure OpenAI Service, an offering designed to provide organizations with access to OpenAI AI systems, including GPT-3, along with security, compliance, governance, and other business-focused features.
“We have built our partnership with OpenAI around a common goal of responsibly advancing cutting-edge AI research and democratizing AI as a new technology platform,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across all industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models and toolchains with Azure to build and run their applications.”
Sources previously reported that Microsoft would aim for a 49% net stake in OpenAI, valuing the company at around $29 billion. Under the terms of an agreement announced by Semafor, Microsoft would receive three-quarters of OpenAI’s profits until it recoups its investment, with additional investors receiving 49% and OpenAI retaining the remaining 2% of equity.
OpenAI is under pressure to take advantage of products like ChatGPT. The startup hopes to make $200 million by 2023, a pittance compared to the billions of dollars it has invested to date.
“The past three years of our collaboration have been incredible,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a press release. “Microsoft shares our values and we look forward to continuing our independent research and work to develop advanced AI that benefits everyone.”
Source: La Neta Neta
Jason Jack is an experienced technology journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in computer science and engineering, he has a deep understanding of the latest technology trends and developments. He writes about a wide range of technology topics, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, software development, and cybersecurity.
