Microsoft has become a big player in the AI space with OpenAI and Nadella is happy that his decision to partner has paid dividends.
Microsoft has a solid lead in the AI race thanks to its partnership with OpenAI which has allowed the company to use the latest ChatGPT versions before others get a chance to test. OpenAI has gone through major changes in a short time, but Sam Altman continues to lead the team along with Greg Brockman and others.
But we never got to know why Satya Nadella’s Microsoft decided to partner with OpenAI and what qualities appealed to Nadella about the AI giant?
The Microsoft chief has been talking candidly recently, and in one of the latest podcasts, Nadella finally gave us insights into the partnership and how Microsoft decided to go ahead with the unique deal. “I met folks at OpenAI – Sam (Altman) and Greg (Brockman) – [and of the things they had] was that they have a different approach to things and we wanted to partner,” Nadella was quoted saying in a podcast.
He also refers to OpenAI as “one of the high ambition technology innovation companies,” which Nadella says has put Microsoft in a strong position to compete with other AI giants in the industry.
OpenAI has an interesting equation with Microsoft, and Nadella clearly realises the need to give them the freedom to work and build on technologies. Reports claim Microsoft has invested around $10 billion in this partnership, most of which is hardware support. Nadella clearly saw something in Altman and Co. and now his company is reaping the benefits of the punt.
Talking about AI, Nadella had recently mentioned that he can’t believe Google is not leading the AI race, especially with all the tools and resources at its disposal. In fact, Nadella was quoted saying in a podcast that Google should have been the default winner. He said that Google is the most vertically placed company to take advantage of the AI boom. After all, it has the tech, the man power and even the data to train the AI models.