Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, candidly admitted that had it not been for a Microsoft tie-up with OpenAI, Google would have been a default winner in the AI space. He called Google a competent player which has both the talent and the compute. They have everything to be successful — data, silicon, products and distribution.
Of course, Microsoft’s tie-up with OpenAI has made the field more competitive. If Microsoft partners well and innovates well, it can bring some competition to Google.
In fact, according to Nadella, Microsoft has been dabbling with AI since long. They did some serious work around speech in 1995. They recruited folks from CMU, and they have been working at Ai in various forms since long.
OpenAI partnership happened as they had a different approach. Microsoft is on the lookout for partners with whom they can innovate, and OpenAI team qualifies here. However, it all was a shot in the dark. It is the technology — you are in and hope for the best. This is the conventional wisdom. Thus a tech company has to backed long before it becomes conventional wisdom.
Microsoft is building AI infrastructure. It should be the best. Azure should be best both for training or for inference. They plan to tie-up with Nvidia and AMD. And with others. Azure should serve the needs of OpenAI, Mistral and Phi. They are focusing on small language model too.
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