Microsoft has announced a deepening of its partnership with the company behind the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT, announcing a multi-billion dollar investment in the business.
He said the OpenAI deal would involve implementing the company’s artificial intelligence models in Microsoft products, which include the Bing search engine and its office software such as Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, has been a sensation since it launched in November, with users marveling at its ability to perform tasks ranging from writing recipes and sonnets to job applications.
It is at the forefront of generative AI, or technology trained on vast amounts of text and images that can create content from a simple text prompt.
It has also been described as a “game changer” that will challenge university and school teachers amid concerns that students are already using chatbots to write high-quality essays with minimal human input.
In a blog post announcing the “third phase” of its partnership, Microsoft said the investment will include additional supercomputing development and cloud computing support for OpenAI through Microsoft’s Azure platform.
Microsoft was previously reported to be considering a $10bn (£8bn) investment in OpenAI this time around.
“We built our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft.
“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.”
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Monday’s announcement is Microsoft’s third investment in San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was co-founded by Elon Musk and investor Sam Altman. As part of the investment, Microsoft built a supercomputer to power OpenAI technology, among other forms of support.
Dan Ives, an analyst at US financial services firm Wedbush Securities, said: “As ChatGPT is one of the most innovative AI technologies seen in the industry, [Microsoft] is clearly aggressive on that front and won’t back down from what could be a potentially game-changing investment in AI.
“In the AI race today, Nadella & Co are ahead of the rest of Big Tech, and this investment is an important step in the AI belt.”
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