OpenAI clarifies that Microsoft stays its primary cloud platform after deal with Oracle announced

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Key notes

  • OpenAI assures a continued strong relationship with Microsoft as its primary cloud partner.
  • OpenAI to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for specific tasks like running Azure AI for inference.
  • Microsoft supercomputers remain the platform for training OpenAI’s most advanced models.
OpenAI Oracle Microsoft

OpenAI has shed light on its cloud partnership announcement with Oracle, which was made today, and is clarifying its ongoing relationship with Microsoft, who happened to be its biggest investor.

Previously, it was reported that OpenAI would be extending Microsoft’s Azure AI platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). While this remains true, OpenAI emphasizes their “strategic cloud relationship with Microsoft is unchanged.

OpenAI tweeted:

We want to clarify some inadvertent confusion.  

Our strategic cloud relationship with Microsoft is unchanged.

The partnership with OCI enables OpenAI to use the Azure AI platform on OCI infrastructure for inference and other needs.

All pre-training of our frontier models continues to happen on supercomputers built in partnership with Microsoft

In simpler words, the new partnership allows OpenAI to leverage the strengths of both cloud providers. They will utilize OCI’s infrastructure to run the Azure AI platform for specific tasks, such as inference—the process of using trained AI models to generate results. This provides OpenAI with additional resources to scale its operations.

However, core training of OpenAI’s most advanced models, known as “frontier models,” will continue to take place on supercomputers built specifically in partnership with Microsoft. This means that Microsoft remains the primary cloud platform for OpenAI’s cutting-edge research.

This news sums up the collaborative nature of the cloud computing industry. Different cloud providers can work together to address the specific needs of a customer, like OpenAI.