There seems to be a rift between artificial intelligence startup OpenAI and its investment partner Microsoft: the former wants to change the exclusive cooperation agreement with Microsoft, while the latter hopes to break away from its dependence on OpenAI as its own technology continues to grow.
According to a recent report by American media, there are many differences between the two sides - including Microsoft's financial support for OpenAI, the computing power provided by Microsoft for OpenAI, and differences in basic rules - and their five-year friendship has cooled down.
Disagreement
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asked Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella if he was willing to invest billions of dollars in OpenAI. At that time, Microsoft had already invested a total of $13 billion in OpenAI.
Nadella initially expressed willingness to continue providing financial support to OpenAI. However, according to four insiders, after OpenAI's board briefly dismissed Altman in November last year, Nadella and Microsoft began to reconsider this investment.
In the following months, despite OpenAI continuously seeking more funding and computing resources from Microsoft to build and operate its AI system, Microsoft remained unmoved. It is reported that OpenAI is currently facing financial difficulties and is expected to lose $5 billion this year.
Over the past year, OpenAI has repeatedly attempted to negotiate with Microsoft to reduce costs and allow it to purchase computing resources from other companies.
In June of this year, Microsoft agreed to include an exception in the contract, allowing OpenAI to sign an approximately $10 billion computing agreement with Oracle to obtain additional computing resources.
In recent weeks, OpenAI has also negotiated with Microsoft to modify future contracts to reduce the computing power fees Microsoft charges OpenAI, but the specific terms are not yet clear.
This tense relationship highlights a key challenge faced by artificial intelligence startups: these companies rely on the world's tech giants for funding and computing power, as these large companies control the large-scale cloud computing systems needed by small businesses to develop artificial intelligence.
In addition, when OpenAI received a huge investment from Microsoft, it signed an exclusive agreement to purchase computing power from Microsoft and closely collaborate with the tech giant in the new field of artificial intelligence.
However, since the dismissal of Ultraman, Microsoft has begun to hedge the risks of betting on OpenAI. Microsoft executives are increasingly concerned about whether their artificial intelligence business is overly reliant on OpenAI.
Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott mentioned in an interview Microsoft's significant bet on OpenAI, stating, "In this partnership, we have continuously invested in OpenAI at multiple critical moments. We are undoubtedly their largest capital investor
Microsoft is also constantly developing its own technology. In March of this year, Microsoft spent at least $650 million to poach most of its employees from OpenAI competitor Reflection.
Despite the surging undercurrents, Altman maintained the surface peace. He stated in a statement on Thursday (October 17th), "We are very grateful for our collaboration with Microsoft. Their early big bets on us and the large amount of computing resources they provided were crucial to our research breakthroughs, which benefited both companies greatly. We are excited and committed to pursuing our shared vision and achieving greater goals
Breakup Clause
The most attractive aspect of the report may be a clause in OpenAI's contract with Microsoft: if OpenAI develops so-called General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), which is an artificial intelligence system that can rival human thinking, then Microsoft will not be able to acquire OpenAI's technology.
The problem is that OpenAI's board of directors can decide when AGI will arrive, and CEO Sam Ultraman has stated that there will be some subjectivity at this moment.
According to reports, the original intention of this clause was to ensure that Microsoft would never abuse this technology, but now it has become an unexpected way for both sides to argue.
As he said at the beginning of last year, "The closer we get to AGI, the harder it is for me to answer (how far away AGI is from us), because I think it will become more ambiguous and the transition process will be much slower than people imagine