Microsoft Pours Billions Into OpenAI Amid Ongoing Layoffs
Microsoft extends its partnership with OpenAI through a multi-billion-dollar investment to accelerate AI research and integrate the technology across its products. The deal keeps Azure as the exclusive cloud provider for the startup.
Microsoft expands its partnership with OpenAI through a new multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment. The startup plans to use this undisclosed capital infusion to continue independent research and create AI that is safe, useful, and powerful. This move comes just one week after Microsoft announces plans to lay off 10,000 employees as part of broader cost-cutting measures.
As part of the deal, OpenAI operates as a capped-profit company that limits investor returns. Microsoft increases its deployment of specialized supercomputing systems to accelerate OpenAI's research and integrates these AI systems into its own products to create new digital experiences. Azure remains the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, powering all of the startup's workloads across research, products, and API services.
The tech giant prepares to bring OpenAI's technology directly to consumers by integrating ChatGPT into Bing search results and adding language AI to apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. This latest investment builds on a long history of collaboration, following Microsoft's initial $1 billion investment in 2019 and previous integrations of GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 into services like Power Apps and Microsoft Edge.