On October 17th, there was a sudden news in China that Microsoft Azure OpenAI will stop providing individual developer services. Several domestic developers have posted on the internet claiming to have received an official email stating 'stop service'. After OpenAI tightened the restrictions on APIs, Azure OpenAI business is the only legal channel to use OpenAI in Chinese Mainland.
The reporter from the Daily Economic News immediately inquired with Microsoft officials about this matter and received a positive response. Microsoft stressed that this matter will only affect non enterprise users in Chinese Mainland, and enterprise users can continue to use the service.
Regarding Microsoft's "suspension of services", some developers have expressed that domestic models may face more opportunities.
Microsoft response: Enterprise users in Chinese Mainland can still use Azure OpenAI service
On October 17th, several individual developers posted online that they had received an email from Microsoft's official website. The email states that due to regulatory requirements, Azure OpenAI services for individual users will be terminated on October 21, 2024.
The Azure OpenAI business will be officially launched to global enterprise users as early as March 2023, allowing enterprise users to access OpenAI's AI models through APIs. In January 2024, the user base of this service will expand to all users worldwide.
Regarding the matter of "stopping services", a reporter from the Daily Economic News inquired with Microsoft officials about the relevant situation. Microsoft officially confirmed the authenticity of the news, and stressed that this matter will only affect non enterprise users in Chinese Mainland, and enterprise users can continue to use the service.
In fact, some developers disclosed to the media that many companies in Chinese Mainland currently use personal accounts because there is a certain threshold for enterprise user qualification review.
After OpenAI tightened its restrictions on APIs, Azure OpenAI business is the only legitimate channel for users in Chinese Mainland to use OpenAI. Microsoft has stated that OpenAI's decision was made independently, and Azure China, as a joint venture with local company Century Internet, will continue to provide Azure OpenAI services to China.
Azure OpenAI services support API access to powerful OpenAI language models such as o1 preview, o1 mini, and GPT-4o. These models can easily adapt to specific tasks, including but not limited to content generation, summarization, image understanding, semantic search, and natural language to code conversion. Global users can develop powerful AI applications based on these models.
Moreover, there is no difference between Azure OpenAI and the developer API provided by OpenAI, and the restrictions on calling are relatively relaxed. This is also the reason why many developers are willing to continue choosing Azure.
Domestic models may usher in opportunities
As Microsoft stops its Azure OpenAI business for individual users, some developers have expressed that domestic models may usher in more opportunities.
Earlier, some Internet enterprise executives said, "In fact, many individual developers are using the domestic big model for application development. By the end of the year, it is expected that several big head models should be comparable to GPT-4."
According to the "Annual Report on the Development of New Generation Artificial Intelligence (2023-2024)" jointly released by the China Economic Information Society and the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance, there are over 190 generative artificial intelligence service models in China that have been filed and launched, and can provide services to the public, with registered users exceeding 600 million.
As early as OpenAI tightened its restrictions, domestic AI model suppliers including Zhipu and Alibaba Cloud Bailian provided migration services to users.