Microsoft announces multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT

Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment with ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Monday.

Microsoft declined to provide a specific dollar amount. Earlier this month, Semafor reported that Microsoft was in talks to invest $10 billion.

The deal marks the third phase of the partnership between the two companies, following Microsoft’s previous investments in 2019 and 2021. Microsoft said the renewed partnership will accelerate breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and help both companies commercialize advanced technologies in the future.

“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,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a release.

OpenAI works closely with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. In July 2019, Microsoft backed OpenAI with $1 billion, and this investment made Microsoft the “exclusive” cloud computing service provider for OpenAI. Microsoft said that Azure will continue to act as the exclusive provider of OpenAI.

Microsoft’s investment will also help the two companies tackle supercomputing at scale and create new experiences powered by artificial intelligence, the release said.

OpenAI is ranked by AI researchers as one of the top three AI labs in the world, and the company has developed AI gaming software that can beat humans in video games like Dota 2. However, it may have gotten more attention for its text generator artificial intelligence GPT -3 and its fancy image generator AI Dall-E.

ChatGPT automatically generates text based on written prompts in a much more sophisticated and creative way than the chatbots of Silicon Valley’s past. The chatbot debuted in late November and quickly became a viral sensation, with tech executives and venture capitalists gushing about it on Twitter, even comparing that is, before Apple’s iPhone debuted in 2007.