- Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a partnership for further extending Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-scale AI systems as part of a $1 billion deal
Microsoft and OpenAI have partnered to further extend Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-scale AI systems. And through this partnership, the companies will accelerate breakthroughs in AI and power OpenAI’s efforts to create artificial general intelligence (AGI).
And the resulting enhancements to the Azure platform will also help developers building the next generation of AI applications. The partnership covers Microsoft and OpenAI jointly building new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, OpenAI porting its services to run on Microsoft Azure (used for creating new AI technologies and deliver on the promise of artificial general intelligence), and Microsoft becoming OpenAI’s preferred partner for commercializing new AI technologies.
The companies are also going to focus on building a computational platform in Azure of unprecedented scale, which will train and run increasingly advanced AI models, include hardware technologies that build on Microsoft’s supercomputing technology and adhere to the shared principles on ethics and trust of both companies. Plus this will create the foundation for advancements in AI to be implemented in a safe, secure and trustworthy way and is a critical reason the companies chose to partner together.
“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,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “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.”
Over the past decade, innovative applications of deep neural networks coupled with increasing computational power have led to continuous AI breakthroughs in areas like vision, speech, language processing, translation, robotic control, and gaming.
Modern AI systems work best for the specific problem on which they’ve been trained. However, getting AI systems to help address some of the hardest problems facing the world today will require generalization and deep mastery of multiple AI technologies. And OpenAI and Microsoft’s vision is for artificial general intelligence to work with people to help solve currently intractable multidisciplinary problems, including global challenges such as climate change, more personalized healthcare and education.
“The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history, with the potential to shape the trajectory of humanity,” added Sam Altman — the CEO of OpenAI. “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.”
OpenAI was originally set up in October 2015 by Altman, Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and several other investors. Ilya Sutskever (former Google research scientist) is currently serving as the co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI. And Greg Brockman (former CTO of Stripe) is serving as co-founder and CTO of OpenAI. Some of the other backers in OpenAI include Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder), Peter Thiel (PayPal co-founder), and Jessica Livingston (founding partner of Y Combinator).
