Business News: Microsoft in Talks to Raise More Funding for OpenAI

"Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks for a new round of funding in OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the software giant seeks to further incorporate artificial intelligence into its products.

No deal has been reached between the two sides and the funding amount could vary as negotiations evolve, the person said. The companies have held talks in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019.

The new cash could help bankroll the tremendous computing power OpenAI needs to run its various artificial intelligence products on Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing service.

The startup already uses Azure as its exclusive cloud partner and has agreed to give priority to Microsoft when bringing new technologies to market.

OpenAI earlier this year launched Dall-E 2, a project that allowed users to generate art from strings of text and showed the fast advances being made in that segment of AI technology. Last week, Microsoft announced it was integrating Dall-E 2 with various products including Microsoft Design, a new graphic design app, and the image creator for search app Bing.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Microsoft have each developed their own image-generating models -- but have been slower to release them to the public, in part because of ethical concerns.

A newer set of startups have moved more quickly. In August, artificial intelligence startup Stability AI released its own text-to-image generator to the public. It then raised $101 million in new funding from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue Management.

OpenAI, led by the technology investor Sam Altman, began as a nonprofit in 2015 with $1 billion in pledges from Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and other backers.

In 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit company and raised the $1 billion from Microsoft, citing greater computing and staffing needs. OpenAI said it would cap profits at the company, diverting the remainder to the nonprofit group.

Much of OpenAI's research is focused on the potential impacts of artificial general intelligence, the idea that AI systems could one day become better than humans at performing some of the most important tasks.

Some researchers have cautioned that recent advances in AI contribute to unwarranted hype around the technology, and many applications are fraught with ethical issues.

OpenAI said more than 1.5 million users created over 2 million images a day using Dall-E 2 after it was released to the public this month. The technology can turn text descriptions like "an Andy Warhol style painting of a bunny rabbit wearing sunglasses" into realistic images and artworks.

OpenAI has also developed programs to automatically generate text or computer code from written language samples, which are used by companies including Salesforce Inc. and Intel Corp.” [1]

1.  Business News: Microsoft in Talks to Raise More Funding for OpenAI
Berber, Jin; Kruppa, Miles. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 21 Oct 2022: B.3.