Tech giant Microsoft and artificial intelligence (AI) researcher company OpenAI has undergone a new partnership agreement to further extend Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-scale AI systems.
Both companies expect the partnership to provide significant breakthroughs in AI whilst also act as another catalyst for OpenAI and its efforts to create artificial general intelligence (AGI) – Microsoft is said to be investing $1bn.
“The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history, with the potential to shape the trajectory of humanity,” commented Sam Altman, CEO, 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.”
Microsoft anticipate developers to be able to utilise the enhancements to the Azure platform when building next-gen AI applications.
The two entities will begin to jointly build new “Azure AI supercomputing technologies” and OpenAI will tailor its services to run on Microsoft Azure.
Furthermore, both will focus on developing a “computational platform in Azure of unprecedented scale” in order to train and operate AI models and hardware whilst continuously supporting each others ethical views.
OpenAI and Microsoft said its vision is for AGI is to work alongside people to help solve currently intractable multidisciplinary problems, including global challenges such as climate change, more personalised healthcare and education.
“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,” explained Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.
“By bringing together OpenAI’s breakthrough technology with new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, our ambition is to democratise AI — while always keeping AI safety front and center — so everyone can benefit.”
