Microsoft announced an extension of its partnership with OpenAI, with a “multi-year, multi-billion-dollar” investment expected to be in the $10 billion range.
Microsoft, which already invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and plans to invest again in 2021, is looking for an inside track on some of the most popular and advanced artificial intelligence systems as it competes for dominance in the fast-growing industry with Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Meta Platforms Inc.
According to OpenAI, the new capital will be used to continue its independent research and development of “safe, useful and powerful AI.” While Microsoft in a blog post said “the third phase” of its partnership “through a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment” including additional supercomputer development and cloud-computing support for OpenAI.
According to the blog post, both companies will be able to commercialize the resulting AI technology. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform will remain OpenAI’s sole cloud provider, powering workloads across research, products, and API services.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has begun incorporating OpenAI’s technology into its search engine Bing, which is being discussed as a potential competitor to Google for the first time in years.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
