Chief Executive Satya Nadella bet the future of Microsoft MSFT 1.94%increase; green up pointing triangle on the potential of artificial intelligence when he forged a groundbreaking partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. But Nadella is not content to simply rely on OpenAI to dominate in this new era. In recent months, he’s been spreading his bets, turning the world’s biggest company into the world’s most aggressive amasser of AI talent, tools and technology. He has hunted down new partners around the globe and invested in a range of AI startups, including pouring $1.5 billion into an Abu Dhabi-based firm in April. Nadella has also begun building what amounts to an in-house OpenAI competitor inside Microsoft—potentially putting it on a collision course with its most important partner. To lead Microsoft’s AI efforts, he recruited Mustafa Suleyman, a longtime rival of OpenAI’s co-founder, Sam Altman. Suleyman, who helped launch DeepMind, a pioneering AI research firm, and went on to co-found Inflection AI, an AI startup, has brought most of his team from Inflection with him to Microsoft. The new employees have led the process to train their own artificial-intelligence model, built on technology developed at Inflection and designed to be on par with the OpenAI technology Microsoft depends on today. A person familiar with the matter said that some future Microsoft AI products could be switched from OpenAI technology to the model being developed by Suleyman’s team. Nadella’s approach to AI is emblematic of his decade at the helm, during which he has repeatedly reinvented big parts of Microsoft, picking new partners and retooling the tech company. He has been able to spot when one-time company strengths became vulnerabilities and upend even his own strategies. Nadella’s moves have helped Microsoft leapfrog others—most notably the longtime AI front-runner Google—to release AI chatbots and workplace tools expected to change how people think and work. The question is whether these tactics will be enough to keep Microsoft ahead of the pack in artificial intelligence.
Full commentary : Satya Nadella Is Building a vast Microsoft AI Empire and OpenAI deal was just the beginning.
