Microsoft, the largest investor in OpenAI and its primary cloud partner, is losing its exclusive status as the provider of computing capacity for the artificial intelligence startup.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Microsoft stated that it remains in a favorable position with OpenAI. In the future, when OpenAI requires additional capacity, Microsoft will have the “right of first refusal” before considering other providers.
OpenAI stated in a blog post that Oracle is a “key initial technology partner” alongside Arm, Microsoft, and Nvidia in establishing data center infrastructure.
“The data centers are actually under construction,” Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said at a press conference at the White House, alongside Trump. “The first of them are under construction in Texas. Each building is a half a million square feet. There are 10 buildings currently being built, but that will expand to 20 and other locations beyond the Abilene location, which is, which is our first location.”
Oracle shares rose 7% on Tuesday.
In 2019, three years before the launch of ChatGPT, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, which agreed to move its services to Azure. As OpenAI’s computing needs grew, Microsoft signed contracts with third-party cloud providers, such as CoreWeave, to supplement its Azure infrastructure.
OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it will continue to increase its use of Azure, with Microsoft stating that OpenAI recently made “a new, large Azure commitment” for products and model training. Microsoft retains rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property, which can be integrated into products like Copilot. Additionally, Microsoft maintains exclusivity in supplying computing resources for OpenAI’s application programming interface.
However, the relationship has shown signs of strain, and in July, Microsoft labeled OpenAI as a competitor.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s ambitious goals during a podcast with investors Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley, which was released in December.
