Following reports made earlier this year that Microsoft has loosened its stance on using a paid software licensing model in support of open source technologies, the Redmond-based software giant announced today that it has partnered with Elon Musk’s OpenAI on research and development in the field of artificial intelligence.
The nonprofit AI research organization co-founded by Tesla and SpaceX chief, Elon Musk, serial billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, will use Microsoft Azure’s cloud computing platform aimed at large scale data processing for artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“We’re working with Microsoft to start running most of our large-scale experiments on Azure. This will make Azure the primary cloud platform that OpenAI is using for deep learning and AI, and will let us conduct more research and share the results with the world.”, says OpenAI. The research organization highlights the fact that one of the most important factors for accelerating progress in the field of artificial intelligences is having access to more and faster computers – something the new partnership with Microsoft will be able to facilitate.
Microsoft writes through its own blog post, “OpenAI chose Microsoft due to our deep learning research and ongoing commitment to AI, along with Azure’s support for open source technologies and its unique combination of high performance computing, big data and intelligence capabilities such as Azure Batch, Azure Machine Learning and the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (formerly CNTK).,”
Watch as executive vice president of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence explains to OpenAI’s Sam Altman why the new partnership will help foster more breakthroughs in the field of AI.
