Microsoft partners with OpenAI, Invests USD $1 Billion

Microsoft and OpenAI announced their partnership to extend Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-scale AI systems.

As a part of the partnership, Microsoft will be investing $1 billion in OpenAI. OpenAI and Microsoft share their common vision for artificial general intelligence technologies to solve currently intractable multidisciplinary problems, including global challenges such as climate change, more personalized healthcare, and education, notes the announcement.
Founded in 2015, San Francisco based OpenAI was established by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Y Combinator chairman Sam Altman. The company already raised $120K from Y Combinator, according to CrunchBase.

Executive Opinion

CEO, OpenAI, Sam Altman, said, "The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history, with the potential to shape the trajectory of humanity. Our mission is to ensure that AGI technology benefits all of humanity, and we’re working with Microsoft to build the supercomputing foundation on which we’ll build AGI. We believe it’s crucial that AGI is deployed safely and securely and that its economic benefits are widely distributed. We are excited about how deeply Microsoft shares this vision."

CEO, Microsoft, Satya Nadella, said, "AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time and has the potential to help solve many of our world’s most pressing challenges. By bringing together OpenAI’s breakthrough technology with new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, our ambition is to democratize AI — while always keeping AI safety front and center — so everyone can benefit."

Microsoft and OpenAI Partnership

As a part of the partnership, OpenAI will bring its services to the Microsoft Azure platform. OpenAI will ensure necessary porting changes to its services for the Microsoft Azure platform. These services will be utilized to create new AI technologies. Both Microsoft and OpenAI will develop new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, notes the announcement.

The partnership will further focus on building a computational platform in Azure of unprecedented scale. The AI platform will train and run increasingly advanced AI models. The new platform will serve as a foundation to both company's common vision of advancements in AI to be implemented in a safe, secure and trustworthy way.

Microsoft will also be an OpenAI’s preferred partner to commercialize their new AI technologies.