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Microsoft Strengthens OpenAI Partnership with Further Investment

Microsoft announced a "multibillion" dollar increase in funding to OpenAI, maker of the AI-based ChatGPT and image generating tool DALL-E.

"Today, we are announcing the third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world," Microsoft announced on Monday.

The partnership with OpenAI began in 2019 with an initial investment of $1 billion. Later, Microsoft invested another $2 billion into the AI firm in 2021. More recently, Microsoft had announced that OpenAI's ChatGPT would be integrated into Bing to improve user queries and it will be deploying some ChatGPT features into Azure.

Monday's announcement of additional funding is aimed at three specific technological goals and partnership avenues, according to Microsoft:

  • The development of supercomputing systems through the aid of OpenAI's AI research.
  • Increase of OpenAI technology integrated into Microsoft's products and services.
  • Exclusive cloud partnership to power all OpenAI workloads in Azure.

Speaking on the third round of investment, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company will continue to push forward with AI-based investments and research.

"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 Nadella. "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."

Nadella acknowledged that Microsoft was committed to further AI-related investments during his statement last week on the mass layoffs at the company. He cited investment and research push into AI will continue as Microsoft's attempt to "strive to deliver results on an ongoing basis," and that the restructuring of the company, which included the reduction of its workforce by five percent, will help them to stay competitive in this area during a possible upcoming recession.

The exact amount of the third round of investment was not disclosed. Microsoft will be releasing its earnings report on Tuesday for the last quarter of 2022, and details on the further investment may be discussed.

About the Author

Chris Paoli (@ChrisPaoli5) is the associate editor for Converge360.

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