Microsoft has announced a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, extending a partnership spanning AI research, supercomputing and commercial products. The 23 January announcement does not disclose an exact amount.
Microsoft plans to expand specialised supercomputing infrastructure and deploy OpenAI models across consumer and enterprise products. Azure remains OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, supporting research, products and API services.
The companies can independently commercialise the resulting technologies. Microsoft describes this as the partnership’s third phase, following investments in 2019 and 2021.
For developers, Azure OpenAI Service provides access to OpenAI models alongside Azure’s enterprise infrastructure and tools.
A computing partnership built over years
The original July 2019 agreement included a disclosed US$1 billion investment. It called for jointly developing Azure AI supercomputing technology and moving OpenAI services onto Microsoft’s cloud. Microsoft also became OpenAI’s preferred partner for commercialising new AI technologies.
That earlier agreement centred on a computing platform capable of training and running increasingly advanced models. It established the infrastructure relationship behind the companies’ work together, rather than simply a financial stake.
Discover more from Sulat AI & Tech News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
