Microsoft and OpenAI announced on tuesday They have adjusted their partnership so that OpenAI can access competitors' calculations.
Microsoft says the new agreement “includes a change in exclusivity on new capability, moving toward a model where Microsoft has the right of first refusal (ROFR).” “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved the ability for OpenAI to create additional capabilities primarily for research and training of models.”
The foundation of their relationship (which runs until 2030) remains largely the same – Microsoft keeps exclusive rights to OpenAI's technology for products like Copilot, and OpenAI's API remains exclusive to Azure. They will maintain their two-way revenue-sharing setup (has been the case). informed Microsoft gets 20 percent of OpenAI's revenue). Before today's change, OpenAI was forced to exclusively use Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure for its computing needs.
The models OpenAI hopes to build and the user base it hopes to serve require billions of dollars of computation. it has been done first reported Some OpenAI shareholders felt that Microsoft was not moving fast enough to provide computing power to OpenAI, hence why the startup Partnered with Oracle in June (With the blessing of Microsoft) for the necessary calculations.
There has been a lot of discussion about the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI facing sourness after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was briefly ousted from the company, which led to a lot of public drama. the new York Times informed Relations have become increasingly strained due to financial pressures on OpenAI, concerns about sustainability, and increasing friction between the two companies' employees.
last March, Microsoft appoints Mustafa Suleiman as CEO of Inflexion To lead its consumer AI efforts along with most of Inflexion's employees in a $650 million deal. according to the new York Times According to the report, the move particularly angered some OpenAI leadership, including Altman.
OpenAI also has a deal with Microsoft is an unusual escape clause: If OpenAI creates artificial general intelligence (AGI), it could cut off Microsoft's access to some of its most powerful models developed after that point. AGI is reportedly defined as a system capable of Production over $100 billion In profit. Its original purpose was to protect such powerful AI from commercialization, but now OpenAI Allegedly Removing this provision is being considered, which is likely to secure more Microsoft funding.