OpenAI has already completed its transition to a for-profit organization after years, and Microsoft has also sealed the agreement that redefines their relationship. It maintains a 27% stake (valued at $135 billion) and also gets something potentially more valuable: autonomy to develop AGI on its own.
Why is it important. Microsoft has gone from being a kind of AI “pagafantasy”, seeing how OpenAI was the one that took the spotlight day in and day out, with the only benefit of the rise of Azure; to become the player best positioned to dominate its infrastructure, its models and its commercial application.
You have paid for access… and you have ended up buying independence.
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In detail. The new framework extends Microsoft’s intellectual property rights until 2032, including on post-AGI models. You will also be able to use some of OpenAI’s intellectual property to advance your own projects—albeit with computational limits—and collaborate with third parties.
Before I couldn’t. Now yes.
The panoramic. Microsoft stops depending on the rhythms, decisions and crises of OpenAI. It remains its main infrastructure partner (with an additional 250 billion contract in Azure, a quarter of a billion with a ‘b’ for ‘barbarism’), but it no longer needs to wait for Sam Altman to declare that he has achieved AGI. You can do it on your own. Or better yet: with others.
The pact buries the clause that most irritated Satya Nadella: the one that prevented him from competing for the AGI. That limitation turned Microsoft into a kind of patron with its hands tied. It is now a co-owner, supplier and potential competitor.
In perspective. The turn does not break the alliance, in fact it consolidates it:
- OpenAI gains freedom to raise capital, essential to finance its 1.4 billion plan for data centers.
- And Microsoft maintains preferential access to its models until 2032.
Both companies, in any case, are preparing for the phase in which AI stops being software and definitively becomes infrastructure.
In WorldOfSoftware | OpenAI started out as open and non-profit. That company no longer exists, and Microsoft has gained from it
Featured image | WorldOfSoftware
