Open but not free: the future of Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI

开放而不失自由:微软与OpenAI关系的未来

Editor's Picks from The Economist

新闻

2024-11-06

6 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

A handpicked article read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. Microsoft's patronage of OpenAI has served both companies extremely well. For continued growth, we argue that Microsoft must allow its crowning jewel to spread its wings.  Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+ For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Hello, Alice Forward here, co-host of Money Talks,

  • our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.

  • Welcome to Editors' Picks.

  • You're about to hear an article from the latest edition of The Economist.

  • Thanks for listening.

  • Microsoft has provided more than $13 billion in cash and computing capacity to OpenAI,

  • a once penniless start-up that is now at the forefront of Generative Artificial Intelligence or AI and,

  • as of its most recent fundraising round, worth $157 billion.

  • In exchange, Microsoft has gained the exclusive right to run OpenAI's models on Azure,

  • its cloud computing business.

  • So far it has been a wildly successful partnership.

  • Funding from Microsoft has helped OpenAI build bigger and better Large Language Models or LLMs.

  • That technology in turn has been incorporated into Microsoft's various software products.

  • The ties between the two have allowed Azure to chip away at the lead of AWS,

  • Amazon's cloud computing division, notes Brent Thill of Jeffreys, an investment bank.

  • Azure's revenue grew 33% year-on-year in the quarter from July to September,

  • exceeding expectations, though it projected growth would slow in the current quarter.

  • Analysts reckon that AWS's revenues grew by 19% for the same period.

  • Amazon was due to report after The Economist went to press.

  • Yet like Michelangelo with the Medici's,