Microsoft has announced a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in artificial intelligence (AI). as it extends its partnership with OpenAI.
OpenAI is the creator of the popular image generation tool Dall-E and the chatbot ChatGPT.
In 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion (£808 million) in the company, which was founded by Elon Musk and tech investor Sam Altman.
The Windows and Xbox maker plans up to 10,000 layoffs but said it will continue to hire in key strategic areas.
Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in a memo to employees last week: “The next great wave of computing is born, with advances in AI.”
Announcing the expanded partnership, the company said it believes AI will have “an impact at the scale of personal computers, the web, mobile devices and the cloud.”
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is capable of convincingly providing human answers to questions.
Speculation about the potential abuse of the technology, from helping students cheat on exams to writing malware, has been coupled with suggestions that it has the potential to revolutionize many industries, including search.
Microsoft owns the Bing search engine, and while it lags behind Google in popularity, some suspect ChatGPT poses a threat to the industry leader.
The New York Times reported that Google was prompted to declare a “Code Red” over concerns it would allow competitors to infiltrate the company’s $149 billion search business.
Google has previously held back from releasing some AI systems for public use.
The company has cited “ethical challenges” for not releasing its Imagen imaging system.
Researchers said there was a risk that the system, which is trained on data from the internet, would learn “harmful stereotypes and representations”.
Microsoft said it strives to “build AI systems and products that are trustworthy and secure.”
It said it would use OpenAI’s technology “for our consumer and enterprise products.”
Besides ChatGPT, the company also produces Dall-E, which generates images in response to simple text instructions, and GitHub Copilot, a system that uses AI to write computer code.
Microsoft said its Azure cloud computing platform will continue to support OpenAI.
Previous reports suggested Microsoft was considering investing another $10 billion in OpenAI, but the company’s announcement didn’t specify the size of its investment.
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