OpenAI Joins Hands with Microsoft

OpenAI, the non-profit artificial research company, has joined hands with Microsoft to tap into the computing power of the latter.

Founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015, OpenAI aims to build safe artificial intelligence-based frameworks and products, and strives to ensure that the benefits of AI are spread as widely and evenly as possible. In the short term since this company was founded, it has made rapid strides in the world of AI.  Further, this company has hired many top researchers from companies like Facebook and Google to augment its research and to push AI to new heights. It is backed by some of the top tech investors in the world such as Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingstone, and others who share a passion for tech, specially AI. Each of these investors have pledged $1 billion a year for AI research.

To move ahead, OpenAI needs extensive computing power, and it believes this need can be fulfilled by Microsoft. This is why OpenAI and Microsoft have entered into an agreement, under which large-scale experiments of Open AI will be run on Microsoft’s Azure platform. OpenAI’s research is focused on deep learning research that requires enormous farms of GPU processors even for testing. Building such a complex network from scratch can be a waste of time and resources, especially when the same is being offered by another company. In fact, Microsoft’s computing powers are one of the best in the industry as they are powered by Nvidia Corp’s graphic chips. This architecture and composition make it ideal for deep learning, simulations, and for some of the most intense computing workloads.

Besides offering computing power, Microsoft will also collaborate with OpenAI to advance research in artificial intelligence, and also to create new tools and technologies that will boost deep learning, machine algorithms, and other related areas. Further, this partnership can significantly alter the dynamics of a competitive cloud market, where giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google offer massive amounts of computing power. In fact, this deal could give Microsoft an edge when it comes to combining computing power and AI.

In many ways, this move by OpenAI brings out the important role played by computing power for the future of AI. Already, companies like Google and Facebook have the resources to build massive computing power needed for modern AI research, with Google even releasing its own AI processor. Going forward, more companies involved in AI research are expected to focus on building their own computing power or they are likely to partner with companies that already offer them. It won’t be long before we seen more innovations in the field of AI.

As of now though, Open AI will release open-source software and tools to the public, to help them run large-scale AI applications in the cloud. Also, it will work closely with Microsoft to ensure that Azure’s capabilities keep pace with the changes and advancements made in the world of AI.

The future sure looks exciting, as we can expect AI projects to start taking shape soon.

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