Nadella hires Altman competitor to accelerate tech development
"Some MS products may exclude OpenAI technology"
OpenAI collaborates with Apple... "MS CEO concerns" reported
Amid fierce competition among global big tech companies for dominance in artificial intelligence (AI), attention is focused on how long the partnership between OpenAI, the developer of the generative AI 'ChatGPT' launched in 2019, and Microsoft (MS) will last. Based on this partnership, Satya Nadella, CEO of MS who holds the AI leadership, is pouring investments into the internal AI team to develop in-house technology, while OpenAI is accelerating the commercialization of ChatGPT by collaborating not only with MS but also with Apple. The market is closely watching how MS and OpenAI will influence each other as they move according to their respective interests.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently reported that Nadella is focusing on building an 'AI empire' and is not content with relying solely on OpenAI; he has been investing heavily by securing AI talent and acquiring companies over several months.
Nadella has empowered Mustafa Suleyman, head of MS’s consumer AI division, by granting him budget and personnel authority. Suleyman is the founder of DeepMind, the AI company famous for 'AlphaGo' in 2010. When he joined MS in March, he brought most of the staff from Inflection AI, an AI company he had invested in. MS is accelerating additional technology development based on the technology owned by Inflection AI.
The reason Nadella’s support for Suleyman is notable is that Suleyman is considered a rival to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Altman founded OpenAI not only to counter DeepMind but also had to face a situation where Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and an early investor in OpenAI, met Suleyman who was investing in Inflection AI, leading Hoffman to step down from OpenAI’s board. Altman and Suleyman have been competing in the AI industry to the extent that Altman has expressed regret over these developments.
It was Nadella who 'recruited' Suleyman to MS. MS had been investing in Inflection AI. Nadella met with Suleyman for over a month, persuading him several times to join MS, eventually reaching an agreement on the condition that most of Suleyman’s team would also join MS. Currently, Suleyman serves as MS’s Executive Vice President and Chief AI Officer, reporting directly to Nadella.
WSJ, citing internal MS sources, reported, "Some of MS’s AI products may transition from OpenAI’s technology to the technology developed by Suleyman’s team," adding, "There is confusion due to the long-standing rivalry between Suleyman and Altman, the balance of power, and internal politics."
OpenAI is not solely dependent on MS. Recently, OpenAI attracted significant attention by forming a partnership with Apple. At the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) held on the 10th, Apple announced it would integrate ChatGPT into its voice assistant 'Siri.' The plan is to make Siri smarter so it can better respond to requests from users of Apple devices such as the iPhone by leveraging ChatGPT.
Regarding this, the U.S. IT media outlet The Information reported that Nadella is concerned about the impact of Apple and OpenAI’s collaboration on the relationship between OpenAI and MS. It is interpreted that Nadella worries that Apple, joining the AI race late while MS, Google, and Meta Platforms are all striving for AI dominance, might negatively affect MS by partnering with OpenAI.
Nadella’s ambition to build an AI empire is truly sincere. Not only is he securing talent to accelerate technology development, but he is also eager to invest in AI startups worldwide. Especially, when these startups travel outside their offices, Nadella personally attends meetings with them to actively promote the use of Azure cloud services. As a result, MS decided in April to invest $1.5 billion in G42, a state-owned AI company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and also signed Azure cloud usage contracts with Canadian AI company Cohere and French AI startup Mistral AI.
WSJ stated that Nadella has bet MS’s future on AI through the partnership with OpenAI, which has advanced MS’s position in the AI leadership battle against Google. However, it also expressed skepticism about whether this strategy will allow MS to maintain AI dominance continuously.
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