Microsoft Expands 'Billion Dollar' Deal

Microsoft is making a "multi-billion dollar" investment that will lead to broader use of OpenAI technology and more robust behind-the-scenes support. Microsoft has also released OpenAI-powered features such as natural language programming and a DALL-E 2 graphic design tool. OpenAI uses Microsoft's infrastructure to train its best-known systems, including DALL-E 2 and the popular ChatGPT bot.

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ChatGPT is coming soon to Azure

However, no one should expect to see ChatGPT on Bing, at least not yet. The versatile AI chatbot is also growing in popularity. The current version already has more than one million users around December 2022. This ongoing agreement will also see Microsoft increase its investment in supercomputing accelerating OpenAI research. Azure will remain OpenAI's sole cloud provider for products, research and services. The exact size of the financial contribution is unknown. However, a Bloomberg source reportedly claims that Microsoft is investing $10 billion over "multiple years".

Microsoft first backed OpenAI in 2019. The New York Times notes that it has "quietly" invested an extra $2 billion since that first round. The companies have grown closer since the collaboration began. There is no mention of some rumored developments, such as integrating ChatGPT into Bing. But this expansion could help Microsoft gain a competitive advantage. Google reportedly sees ChatGPT as a threat to its search business. And it is believed to be devoting most of its attention to a search chatbot and other AI products, despite its reluctance to fully adopt the technology due to copyright concerns. Even if the deeper OpenAI partnership doesn't improve Bing, Microsoft could benefit by forcing rivals like Google to change course.